A Report On C-E Translation Of The Structure Of The Electronic Control Diesel Engine And Its Breakdown Maintenance (Excerpt) From The Perspective Of Text Function

The Structure of the Electronic Control Diesel Engine and Its Breakdown Maintenance introduces the fault diagnosis of the electronic control system in diesel engine as well as the corresponding maintenance methods and skills,which is of great value to help the technicians find out and eliminate faults quickly.However,it’s a challenging task for the translator to convey the information accurately and effectively,and help the foreign technicians to carry out safe engine maintenance.Peter Newmark,a British translator,believed that there is more than one function in a text.Based on the classification of Reiss’ text function,he refined and proposed a more detailed classification on text types based on different language functions.His mode of text type theory helps translators identify the text functions so as to recognize its text type,and the corresponding translation principles and methods are selected to achieve its text functions.Based on Newmark’s text type theory,this report selects one chapter of The Structure of Electronic Control Diesel Engine and Its Breakdown Maintenance as the research object.By analyzing the text function of the maintenance manual,the translator confirms that the manual is a comprehensive information text with informative,vocative and expressive function,among which,the informative function is the main function.Firstly,as informative function is the most prominent function of the text,the translator focuses on how to realize the informative function in the translation.For the information transfer at the lexical level,accurate translation of terms and flexible handling of special words play a crucial role in transmitting information.At the syntactic level,in order to realize the informative function,the translator highlights the instructional information by conversion of voice and sentence structure as well as omission of redundant expressions.Secondly,the vocative function needs to be embodied in the target text.In order to make the translation more acceptable,the translator optimizes the sentence structure by nominalization and restructuring long sentences,and enhances the logical coherence of the text by adding grammatical cohesion and adjusting information sequencing.Finally,the expressive function should be retained as far as possible.In order to embody the authority of arguments of the maintenance manual,the translator adopts the means of specific reference and hedges.The translation retains negation and adopts emphatic sentences to realize the expressive function of the source text.To some extent,this report enriches the application of Newmark’s text type theory in translation and provides reference for the translation research on maintenance manuals.