论文总字数：31329字

摘 要

随着科学技术的快速发展，中国和其他国家之间在科学技术方面的交流日益频繁。众所周知，科技的发展能够促进社会的发展。因此，科技英语的翻译变得愈加重要。

功能对等更强调与原文词汇和句法的对等，而动态对等更强调译文读者实际理解效果和原文读者的效果上的对等。功能对等表明了原文和译文在其文化功能上的对等。

显而易见的是，英语广泛使用被动语态，而中文很少使用被动语态，原因在于中文存在特殊的语言现象：许多动词不仅能够表达主动意义，而且能够表达被动意义。因此被动中文中的被动语态和英文中的被动语态无法总是相等。此外，英语结构严谨，逻辑严密，而中文形式多样，且强调意义连贯，而这在中英被动语态中得到充分体现。因此，英语被动语态的翻译技巧相对灵活。

本文拟在尤金·奈达的“功能对等”理论的视角下，用实例证明“功能对等”理论对科技英语翻译具有切实可靠的指导意义。文章探讨了中英文的被动结构特征，并通过分析庄绎传对G.C.索恩利的英语科技文《油》的译文，简单地总结研究了科技英语中被动语态的翻译技巧，以期在学者和译者处理被动语态的翻译时有一定帮助。

关键词：功能对等；被动语态；科技英语

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

2.1 Previous studies on functional equivalence…………………………..3

2.2 Previous studies on the translation of passive voice 4

3. Analysis of the Translation Techniques of Passive Voice in EST…….....................................................................................................5

3.1 Converting English passive voice to Chinese passive voice 6

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 divert 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.

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.

Hence, the translation of passive voice mainly concentrates on grammatical structures, however, under the guidance of the functional equivalence, translators have the necessity to adopt some appropriate approaches to convert voice in accordance with the original meaning which the original author want to express. More specifically, if it makes difficult to express the meaning of the original article faithfully, the grammatical structure (form) must be abandoned.

2. Literature Review

There already exist many related researches about translation techniques of passive voice in EST both at home and abroad. However, most researches are about specific methods or strategies, a few about translation techniques quantified by some theory, hardly about translation techniques analyzed by one specific article.

Zhuang Yichuan’s Chinese version of Oil, a scientific article which is abundant of passive voice, is full of various translation techniques which deserve extensive study.

So this thesis attempts to make a study from the perspective of functional equivalence on the translation techniques of passive voice in EST, taking Zhuang’s Chinese Oil version as an example.

2.1 Previous studies on functional equivalence

The advancement of translation theory is carried out simultaneously with that of translation. Based on plenty of translation practice, the famous American linguist and translator Eugene A. Nida first proposed “functional equivalence” in his Toward a Science of Translating in 1964, and put forward and made a distinction between “dynamic equivalence” and “formal equivalence”.

Dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence are two dissimilar translation techniques used to achieve different levels of literalness between the original and target languages of an article. “The two terms have often been understood fundamentally as sense-for-sense translation (translating the meanings of phrases or whole sentences) and word-for-word translation (translating the meanings of words and phrases in a more literal method)”.

Formal equivalence tends to emphasize fidelity to the lexical details and grammatical structure of the original language, whereas dynamic equivalence tends to employ a rendering more natural but with less literal accuracy.

According to Nida, dynamic equivalence means the “quality of a rendering in which the message contained in the original article has been transported into the target language as much as possible and the response of the target readers is fundamentally corresponding to that of the original readers.” (Eugene A. and R. Taber. 200) The desire is that the readers of both languages would understand the meanings of the text in similar ways.

In later years, Nida distanced himself from the term “dynamic equivalence” and preferred the term “functional equivalence” in From One Language to Another authored by himself and Jan De Waard in 1986.  The term “functional equivalence” indicates that the equivalence is between the functions of the source article and the target article (translation) in their cultures, but that the function makes it possible to relate functional equivalence to how people interact in different cultures.

Dynamic equivalence is sometimes used when the coherence and fidelity of the rendering is prior to preserving the grammatical form of the original article, because it abstains from strictly adhering to the grammatical form of the original article and preferring to a more natural translation version with the target language.

Formal equivalence makes it possible for readers to have a good knowledge of the source language and to conduct an analysis of how the original author’s meaning was conveyed in the original text and how those untranslated idioms, diction and rhetorical devices were preserved.

On the other hand, the greater differences exist between the source language and the target language, the tougher it may be for target readers to understand the literal translation of the original text without modifying or rearranging the words in the target language.

2.2 Previous studies on the translation of passive voice

2.2.1 Previous studies on the translation of passive voice in English

Voice is a form of the verb, which expresses the relation between the subject and the object verb. There are two voices in English language: passive voice and active voice. The active voice expresses that the subject is the performer of the action, while the passive voice expresses that the subject is the receiver of the action. Passive voice is used much more in English than in Chinese. And there exist differences between passive voices in English and in Chinese. (Han 75)

“According to the statistics by John Swales in University of Leeds, there are at least one-third of passive voice being used in the predicate verbs in scientific articles (Zhang 126).” The passive voice is wildly exercised, which is regarded as one of the most noticeable characteristics of the English language, especially in EST.

Obviously, people often use passive structures in English language while we seldom use them in Chinese language. Because Chinese has a special language phenomenon: many verbs can express both active and passive meaning. So the passive voice in English and Chinese could not always be corresponding. Thus seeking the translation techniques of the passive structures from English into Chinese is a meaningful job.

2.2.2 Previous studies on the translation of passive voice in Chinese

Chinese employs the passive structure less than English does, and by and large, the passive meaning of Chinese sentences is suggested in its object-first structure. Take several examples for better comprehension, “房间打扫完了”, “窗户擦干净了”, “饭烧好了”, etc. These several Chinese sentences have no seemingly passive marks, but, actually, they are passive structures connoting passive meaning. Consequently, these structures are often picked out to translate English passive voice. Truly, Chinese does have passive structures whose forms differ from those in English. It is considered that Chinese passive structures could be roughly sorted out into two categories: sentences with or without passive signals. When translated into English, both of this two categories should be translated with the English passive voice.

3. Analysis of the Translation Techniques of Passive Voice in EST

Although English and Chinese enjoy something in common, they have apparent discrepancy. Nida considers that “in terms of Chinese and English, it is probable that their most significant difference in linguistics is the comparison of parataxis and hypotaxis.”(Nida 12) English pays attention to hypotaxis; Chinese focus on parataxis.

“Hypotaxis” means “a method that use some means, such as conjunctive words, to combine words or clauses in sentences in order to express grammatical meaning and logical relation”. “Parataxis” means “a method that the grammatical meaning and logical relation in the sentence are conveyed by the meaning of words and clauses rather than any language form.”(Lian 48)

Therefore, the difference between English and Chinese is that English has compact structure and rigorous logic; Chinese has various forms and puts stress on coherence of meaning, which is fully manifested in the employment of English and Chinese passive voice.

When translators translate articles, they must give priority to the meaning of the original text, that is, if it makes difficult to faithfully convey the meaning of the original text, the grammatical structure must be abandoned.

The translation techniques of English passive sentences are relatively flexible, generally speaking, “translators could adopt two techniques, which means that translate English passive sentences into Chinese active voice sentences and Chinese passive voice sentences with or without passive marks.”(Zhang 115)

Now, the author will have a brief discussion about these two main translation techniques of passive voice in EST.

3.1 Converting English passive voice to Chinese passive voice

3.1.1 The technique of using the auxiliary “被” connoting passive meaning

When appearing some sentences in which the action receiver or the action itself is emphasized, the original text need to be translated into Chinese passive voice with the purpose of highlighting its passive meaning.

In Chinese language, passive structure connotes things unexpected or leading to aftermath. The most typical auxiliary is “被”.

However, in Zhuang Yichuan’s Chinese version, this kind of technique is not applied. It may be the reason that in a scientific essay, there is no good using auxiliaries to connote aftermath or unexpectation for scientific text serves for objective statement.

3.1.2 The technique of using the auxiliary “为” connoting passive meaning

Another characteristic auxiliary is “为”, and people often use the structure of “为…所” to implicate passive meaning. The most distinct difference between “为” and “被” is that “为” does not connote aftermath or unexpectation.

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