Strategy Orientation In Translation Based On Text Typology

The theory of text typology is very influential not only in the west, but also in China. Based on Buhler's theory of language functions, Newmark classifies texts into three types: expressive text, informative text, and vocative text, and further puts forward two translation methods: semantic and communicative translations. He emphasizes the importance of the source text and advocates that the source text determines translation methods. Reiss also divides texts into three types: expressive text, informative text, and operative text. She further discusses the close relationship between text types and translation methods. Different text types have different text functions and these functions call for different strategies to translation. In translation practice, most texts have many functions with only one dominating in the text.The purpose of this thesis is to explore the internal relationships between text functions and translation strategies. On the basis of Newmark's text typology, this thesis discusses the feasibility in translation based on text functions and analyzes its importance in the choice of strategies. Finally, it concludes that the text functions can serve as the guiding principle in specifying the strategies with a view to the application of foreignization and domestication.This thesis consists of four chapters apart from introduction and conclusion.Introduction includes the motivation to write this thesis, feasibility and significance of this thesis and project details.Chapter 1 gives a general introduction on text functions in translation and explores the development of text typology on the basis of language functions.Chapter 2 discusses the feasibility in translation based on text functions, for the text typology can play a very important role not only in literary translation but also in practical translation.Chapter 3 explores the choice of strategies in translation. There are many factors influencing the choice of translation strategy, such as text type, translation purpose, the target reader and so on. However, text type is the key to the choice of strategies.Chapter 4 analyzes the strategy orientations in translation based on text typology, namely, with foreignization for expressive text and domestication for informative and vocative texts, thus offering feasibility in translation practice.The last part is the conclusion and suggestion for the future research in this field.