3。2 Converting English passive voice to Chinese active voice 10

4。 Conclusion。。。15

Works Cited 16

1。 Introduction

As modern economy as well as science and technology is developing rapidly, the interaction between China and other countries in science and technology is becoming increasingly frequent。  The development of science can promote social development, so the translation of English for Science and Technology (EST in short) is becoming more and more significant。

Translators may have confusions about how to translate English for Science and Technology in studies and practice。  The reason is that the translation of English for Science and Technology requires not only master of two language but great expertise in certain fields。  Being English majors, translators for EST lack professional knowledge of science and technology, while others, as professionals in some area, may not have reliable English capacity, let alone their translation effectiveness。  Under the circumstances of its difficulty and time pressure, it is arduous to translate EST under the guidance of translation approaches。  Owing to specific subjects of the translation of EST, that is, its specific readers, translators could pert their focuses from the original versions to target readers, which means that they can employ translation techniques according to the requirements of target readers。 

Eugene Albert Nida, a prominent contemporary American linguist as well as a translation theorist, proposed a theory called “functional equivalence”。  “Functional equivalence” refers to the equivalence between two languages in translation instead of direct correspondence which is not clearly stated in texts。  In this theory, he considers that “translation is a reflection process of the source language from semantics and style with the most proper, nature and equivalent target language”。 (Guo 65)

Nida holds that “translation is a process of transaction, that is to say, during this process, what is important is what has been gained when people read the target version” (Nida 118), which means that readers are the subject the translators should pay attention to and survey when they translate and that readers’ reaction has great impact on translation techniques。  Translators must give priority to the meaning of their translation, and when it necessary, they could give up formal equivalence。文献综述

Translating EST makes the target language more practical and comprehensible, helping readers understand the text as the source readers do, so the “functional equivalence” theory has an instructive significance for the EST translation。 

As a branch of English for specific purpose, EST enjoys some features, of which the most conspicuous is the vast employment of passive voice。  “According to the statistics by University of Leeds, at least one third of verbs in EST are in passive voice。 (Zhang 126)”  “Scientific style puts stress on factual descriptions and inferences。 ‘Objective truth and effective expressing’ is the sole of such articles。” (Xiao 180)

On account of the different expression customs in English and Chinese, passive structure is used more in English than in Chinese。  Therefore, the translation of passive structure is especially important in the process of translation。

Passive sentences are in the form of passive voice in English。  Passive voice is a kind of verb form, which is made up of “be + verb (past participle)”, telling the relation between the subject and predicate verb。  Actually, the subject (receiver) of the passive sentence is the receiver of the action, while the actor often appears after the word “by”。  Chinese emphasizes the topic, while English emphasizes the subject。  Therefore, in English passive sentences, things and persons that need to be emphasized are put in the place of subjects。