A Report On E-C Translation Of How To Speak Tech (Excerpts) Under The Guidance Of Translation Shifts Theory

As time changes,Internet technology is no longer in the hands of few.It has become a part of everyone’s daily life and everyone needs to have basic knowledge of it,making the popularization of Internet technology essential.Under the trend of globalization,international exchanges are expanding,therefore the demand for popular science translation is increasing.How to Speak Tech is an introductory popular science book,which covers basic Internet technology concepts as well as new tech topics.Against this background,this report takes this book as the translation object to explore methods and skills of E-C popular science translation.This thesis is a detailed report on the process of this translation practice.Firstly,through the literature research method,it reviews the origin and development of translation shifts theory and finds that Catford’s theory and Kulka’s theory complement each other at the lexical and syntactic level and the textual level,and the combination of the two is applicable to the translation of informative texts.Secondly,it makes a specific statement on the translation process in three parts: pre-translation preparation,in-translation and post-translation quality control.Then,through the case study method,it further analyzes the application of Catford’s and Kulka’s seven translation shifts in translation practice and summarizes translation methods and techniques for popular science texts.Finally,it points out major findings and limitations of this practice and makes suggestions for further studies.By combining theory with practice,this report draws the following conclusions:(1)In the process of translation,translation shift is inevitable.Translation shifts theory can effectively guide the translation of popular science texts and achieve the accurate transmission of text information.(2)At the micro level,according to the characteristics of the original text,such as nominalization,passive sentences,attributive clauses and long and difficult sentences,Catford’s level shifts and category shifts can be adopted for translation.(3)At the macro level,according to the context and the characteristics of the close connection of logical information in the source text,Kulka’s shifts of cohesion and coherence can be adopted for translation to achieve effective cohesion and coherence at the discourse level.Through writing this report,the author has gained a better understanding of the application of Catford’s translation shifts theory and Kulka’s shifts of cohesion and coherence in practice and has also learned something related to Internet technology.It is hoped that more scholars will apply these two types of translation shifts theories to popular science translation in the future,and further promote the international communication in the field of science and technology.