科學教科書翻譯方法對讀者理解程度的影響

Translation Approaches of Scientific Textbooks and Their Effect on Reader Comprehension

陳慶民(Ching-Min Chen) ； 廖柏森(Po-Sen Liao)

《翻譯學研究集刊》 14輯 (2011/12) Pp. 169-213

https://doi.org/10.29786/STI.201112.0008

摘要

科學教科書的譯本對學生學習科學知識的價值不容忽視，然而多數學生卻常認為翻譯本艱澀難懂。此種現象是否因翻譯方法所致，目前並無實證研究結果支持，因此本研究旨在探討科學教科書譯本的不同翻譯方法對大學生讀者理解能力的影響。研究方法是自大學物理教科書的中譯本中選取四篇典型的科學文章做為原譯文本，另外應用奈達（Nida）的功能對等理論和紐馬克（Newmark）的參數對照法檢驗，將該四篇譯文以溝通翻譯法改譯後作為改譯文本，再針對這四篇文本的內容設計選擇測驗題。隨機分組的兩組學生於規定時間內分別閱讀原譯與改譯兩種譯文後填答測驗題。測驗結果經t檢驗後顯示兩組得分達到顯著差異。亦即閱讀改譯譯文的學生，對譯文內容的理解程度明顯高於閱讀原譯譯文的學生。此結果指出如果翻譯科學文本時能應用適當的翻譯方法與理論，就能顯著地改善讀者的理解程度，這也同時證明奈達和紐馬克的理論以及溝通翻譯方法在科學文本的翻譯上具有應用價值。研究者在後續與學生座談中亦發現：科學教科書中照字面翻譯較容易誤導讀者，而長句譯文較容易使讀者困惑。

關鍵字

翻譯方法、科學翻譯、理解程度

並列摘要

While no one would deny the fact that translated science textbooks may facilitate students’ acquisition of scientific knowledge, many current scientific textbook translations are difficult to comprehend from the student’s perspective. Whether the difficulty is caused by the method of translation is not known. The major purpose of this research, therefore, is to study the effects of different methods of translating English scientific textbook into Chinese on the comprehension of college students. The research was conducted via the following steps. First, four typical Chinese scientific articles from a popular textbook translated from English were selected as the original target texts, and a re-translation of the same four articles applying Nida’s notion of dynamic equivalence and Newmark’s communicative approach was taken as the modified target texts. Then, multiple-choice tests based on these two types of translation texts were designed to gauge reading comprehension. Two randomly selected groups of engineering students were asked to take these tests after respectively reading the two types of target texts, and the results of the tests were analyzed using a t-test. The analysis showed that the differences between the two groups were significant and that the students reading the modified target texts had better comprehension than those reading the original target texts. It can be concluded that the method of translation does affect readers’ comprehension level and that modified translation tends to be more comprehensible. By applying methods from translation theories, the modified translations became significantly more comprehensible to the readers, which suggests that Nida’s dynamic equivalence and Newmark’s communicative approach can have practical applications to scientific textbook translation. Moreover, interviews with students also indicated that word-for-word translation tends to cause more misunderstandings, and long sentence constructions are apt to create confusion.

並列關鍵字

translation methods ； scientific translation ； comprehension ability.

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