A Report On C-E Translation Of Technical Bidding Document For Taiyuan Wusu International Airport

Against the background of the sustained growth of global economic and commercial integration,a rising number of Chinese enterprises are inclined to compete in international business,and thus bidding document translation is becoming increasingly important.The translated material in this paper is a complete set of bidding document for the communications equipment upgrading project at Taiyuan Wusu International Airport by Jiangruida Electronic Technology Co.,Ltd,and then the translator is subsequently authorized to translate it into English.This bidding document encompasses all of the contents that should be included in a formal bidding document as well as the additional contents that the bidder deems essential to explain,totaling more than 100,000 words(excluding the graphic materials attached to the text).The translator timely completes the translation of this entire bidding document in compliance with the client’s requirements.This English translation practice of this bidding document is guided by Catford’s Translation Shifts Theory.To exemplify the great guiding significance of various types of translation shifts in translation practice,the author combines the linguistic characteristics of the source text with specific cases from the bidding document.Under the guidance of level shifts,the translator converts Chinese nouns with plural meanings in the text into their plural forms in English,and shifts Chinese sentences with tense meanings into their tense forms in English.With the guidance of category shifts,active voice,prepositive attributive and topic prominence sentences in Chinese are shifted into English passive voice,postpositive attributive and subject prominence sentences respectively;Chinese affirmative and negative expressions are converted into English affirmative or negative structures depending on different contexts;Chinese words and short sentences are shifted into English phrases;and Chinese long sentences are converted into English clauses.After a series of the aforementioned series of shifts,the translation is fluid and natural,in line with English expression habits,considerably improving the readability of the translation and complying with the client’s demands.Ultimately,the author hopes that the various translation shifts employed in this translation practice report will be useful as some reference for future bidding translations.