Abstract

With the improvement of people’s living standards and opening-up policy, large varieties of products have come into China. Thus, instruction manual shall play a significant role in international trade. However, a review of translation studies in China has shown that research on the translation of instruction manual is quite limited. Besides, in approaching the translation of instruction manual, traditional translation theories become unsuitable in this kind of practical text. With high commercial value, instruction manual plays a crucial role. Accordingly, the translation intends to give the customers an impressive effect and also increase the sales in the foreign market. Thus, a more efficient and more practical translation theory is becoming necessary.

Different with other theories, Skopostheorie is a relatively new model on translation studies. This thesis applies the Skopostheorie in practice and introduces the translating methods in order to enlighten the translation of product instruction manual. Meanwhile, this thesis aims to enrich the study of the translation of instruction manual, and arouse more attention to the study of it in the community of translation studies.

Key Words: skopostheorie; translation of instruction manual; principles and methods

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1 Introduction-1

2 Literature Review-2

2.1 Background knowledge of Skopos Theory-2

2.2 Developing stages of Skopos Theory-3

2.3 Three rules of Skopos Theory-5

3 Skopos Theory Applied in the Translation of Instruction Manual-7

3.1 Skopos rule as the most important rule-7

3.2 Principles of instruction manual translation-8

3.2.1 Principle of exactness-8

3.2.2 Principle of conciseness-9

4 Methods in the Translation of Instruction Manual-10

4.1 Literal translation-10

4.2 Transliteration-11

4.3 Abridgement-12

5 Conclusions-13

References-14