Brief Characteristics of Scientific Translation

董志超

【Abstract】As science and technology develop， new English words used to express new concepts， techniques and inventions come into existence. In order to catch up with the science and technology development， we should grip the essence of scientific translation which includes construction， distribution， sequence， and mood and so on. The paper mainly discusses the scientific translation from the aspect of context impact， lexical and grammatical characteristics.

【Key words】scientific translation； lexical； grammatical characteristics

In this paper， the author will talk about the characteristics that affect scientific translation in the following aspects.

1. The impact of scientific context

With the development of science and technology in the world，the quantities of documents dealing with science and technology such as journals， papers， books， scientific reports， patents， proceedings are multiplying at an accelerating rate. As a result， the so-called English for Science and Technology （EST） has now become an important variety of English.

2. The lexical characteristics of scientific translation

The vocabulary used in scientific translation can be divided into the following categories：

A. Pure technical terms （specialized technical terms）： words used only in certain fields， hydroxide 氫氧化合物.

B. General–purpose technical terms： words used in more or less the same sense in a great variety of learning， frequency 頻率.

C. Semi-technical words： words which carry different senses in different disciplines： basic meaning of “feed” is 喂養. However， it can mean 加電， 供水， 輸送， 加載in different contexts.

D. Abstract nouns： words derived from verbs or adjectives： insulate-insulation. Abstract nouns serves to achieve concision and formalness.

E. Words formed by affixation： prefix hydra-： hydrabeating， hydrability. The extensive use of affixation is intended to name the multitude of new concepts that keep springing up each day in science and technology.

F. Abbreviations： LADAR （laser radar）. Abbreviations is also intended to meet the requirements of concision and economy in EST.

3. The grammatical characteristics of Scientific Translation

3.1 The tendency of using present tense

Present tense， especially present simple tense in EST to denote “permanence” or “university” in the description of natural occurrence， processes or general laws.

The use of present tense helps emphasize the objectiveness of description in EST.

3.2 The abundant use of passive voice in English for Science and Technology.

There are three reasons for this characteristic of EST：

The use of passive voice can highlight the object of description or discussion without any reference to human agent.

The use of passive voice can avoid a subjective color and achieve objectiveness. EST calls for concision and economy.

The abundant use of passive voice in EST is sometimes meant for smooth cohesion of discourse.

3.3 The frequent occurrence of nominal constructions in English for Science and Technology.

In scientific writings， a noun phrase is often used in place of a sentence. Such noun phrases are known as nominal constructions. They are clear， concise， compact and information-intensive in place of lengthy clauses and sentences.

3.4 The frequent presence of long and complicated sentences

Long sentences usually consist of a variety of clauses， phrases and other subordinate constituents. Such a sentential structure is to express the different logical relationships between the things explicitly and precisely.

The following cases： Extracting pure water from the salt solution can be done in a number of ways， one is done by distillation which involves heating the solution until the water evaporates， and then condensing the vapor. Extracting can also be done by partially freezing the salt solution. When this is done， the water freezes first， leaving the salts in the remaining unfrozen solution.

從鹽水中提取純水的方法有若干種。一種是加熱蒸餾法，另一種是局部冷卻法。加熱蒸餾法是將鹽水加熱，使水分蒸發，然后再使蒸汽冷凝成水。局部冷卻法是使鹽水部分冷卻，這時先行冷卻的是水鹽則留在未曾冷凍的液體中。

The text possesses the feature such as objective description， rigorous choice of words， and logic construction.

4. Conclusion

From the discussion above， we need to pay our attention not only to linguistic features but also to characteristics of scientific translation. Because EST closely related to the factors， such as context， lexical and grammar perspectives.

References：

[1]On Conveyance of Spirit in Literary Translation.2008