[FONT=Times New Roman]INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale

Shipbuilding is one of the key industries of our country. The next following years may see the development in building many kinds of vessels: bulk carriers, oil tankers, container vessel, car carriers, floating storage and offloading units …. Each kind of vessel has it own technical specification. And in order to understand the structure, technical characteristic as well as the operation, the translation of these technical documents has become more importantly than ever before.

As a translator in a shipbuilding company, the author of this minor thesis days by days work with technical documents. She is fully aware that the translation of technical document is a difficult job, it requires the translator to continuously improve basic knowledge on shipbuilding as well as skill in dealing with situations relating to technical terms, special expressions, and ambiguous structures…

That is the reason why the author chooses the study on translation of technical texts in shipbuilding for her MA minor thesis with the hope that the study can provide the translator a general view on translation of technical texts in shipbuilding industry and the author herself can improve her job.

2. Aims of the study

The study is implemented with the following aims:

o To clarify some aspects in translation of technical texts in shipbuilding

o To delve into some problems relating to translation of technical texts in shipbuilding

o To put forward some suggestions for solution of difficulty in translation

3. Scope of the study

Technical translation is a huge field, each technical field has it owns characteristic, therefore, the translator working on any field of technical translation has to try her/ his best to fulfill her/ his job. The translation of technical texts in shipbuilding is not an exception. Within the scope of this study, a study on the translation of technical texts in shipbuilding is very exclusive to talk about. However, due to the limitation of time and lack of experience, my minor thesis is only limited to dealing with some aspects, problems in translating technical text in shipbuilding.

4. Method of the study

To set up the framework for this study, the author refers to some in-house and foreign publications. In order to achieve the goal of the study, the main method is quantitative data analysis. All the considerations, conclusions in this minor thesis are largely based on:

o Reference to relevant publications

o Analysis of collected data

o Personal observations

5. Design of the study

The study consists of three parts:

Part 1, introduction, includes: rationale, aims, scope, method and design of the study. Part 2 is the development, the focus of the study with three chapters: Chapter 1 is general theoretical background, it introduces general information about translation theory. Chapter 2 deals with an investigation into translation of technical text in shipbuilding. In this chapter, some kinds of technical shipbuilding texts, aspects and problems related to translation these documents are analyzed. Chapter 3 is the implication. This chapter points out some mistakes the translator often meets in translating and some suggested solutions. Part 3 is the conclusion.