Factors affecting the translation of scientific and technological terms

1. Language differences

The Indo-European language family is also known as a phonetic writing system. The Indo-Tibetan language family represented by Chinese belongs to an ideographic writing system. In Chinese, the meaning of a word can often be judged by characters or even radicals. The properties of the Chinese language itself also determine that it is more inclined to free translation in the choice of translation methods. At the same time, the stability of the language will also affect the translation method. Many languages have changed in their connotations due to changes in the times, so they cannot be translated in the same way as before. In contrast, in the long river of history, no language of a nation or country can have the long-term stability of the Chinese language. Therefore, when translating scientific and technological terms, China and other Indo-European countries adopt different methods and strategies. The independence and stability of Chinese itself determine that it always tends to translate new words from foreign cultures.

2. Social factors

The study of the history of translation of scientific and technological terms found that the more economically developed and politically clear the era, the higher the tolerance for different methods of translating scientific and technological terms. Before the founding of New China, the development of science and technology lagged far behind other countries. At that time, China was in a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. Under the influence of underdeveloped economic and political conditions, the Chinese nation's thinking was far behind that of Western countries. There were also deviations in the understanding of itself and the outside world. It was believed that areas outside China were barbaric lands, and the scientific and technological terms of other countries and nations needed to be naturalized and translated by free translation. Fixed translation strategies affected the development of scientific and technological terminology translation. After the founding of New China, economic and cultural exchanges between countries increased, and the Chinese people could be more and more exposed to the languages and cultures of other countries, which also greatly improved people's language level. The choice of methods and strategies for translating scientific and technological terms became more diverse.

3. Internal logic

Scientific and technological terms have systematic characteristics. After completing the translation of a scientific and technological term, whether the internal logic of this scientific and technological term and the translation are mutually exclusive. For example, the scientific and technological term originally translated as myocardial infarction was later translated into myocardial infarction. The myocardium is muscle tissue, which is different from blood vessels. Blood vessels can be blocked, but muscle tissue does not have the concept of infarction, but can only choose infarction. The translation of scientific and technological terms should be in harmony with the internal logic of the scientific and technological terms themselves. This is a reflection of the influence of the internal logic norms of the systematicity and accuracy of scientific and technological terms on translation.