An Analysis on English to Chinese Translation of Electrical Engineering Texts from the Perspective of Professionals under the Guidance of Skopos Theory

Abstract

With the Skopos Theory as the theoretical foundation, this study aims at analyzing the specialized translation of electrical engineering texts from the professionals' perspective. To do this, we first conducted a questionnaire survey to collect the information on the professionals' needs and requirements on the translation of English texts in the realm of electrical engineering. Then, we selected an English academic paper published in a prestigious journal in this field and conducted a semi-structured interview on the Chinese translation of this paper with three professionals in this field. Based on the results of both questionnaire and interview, we analyzed the translation of electrical engineering texts from English to Chinese at lexical, syntactic and textual levels with the guidance of Skopos Theory. It is found from the questionnaire survey that electrical engineering professionals in China do have a need for translation of English texts in this field, and they emphasize the accuracy of terms and information integrity of the target text. From the interview, we also find that Skopos Theory has a strong guiding effect on the specialized translation of electrical engineering texts. Under the guidance of this theory, translators can adopt various translation strategies to enhance their translation output and optimize its communicative effect.