Translation Of Political Texts In Light Of Skopostheorie: A Study On The English Translation Of The Report To The 17^th NCCPC

With the rise of China's international status in the global arena as well as the enhancement of its overall national strength, China is arresting worldwide attention in such realms as political system, economy, foreign affairs, national defense, culture and education. The world as a whole is paying its due attention to the impressive achievements of China, an ancient oriental nation with a history of 5,000 years behind it, playing an indispensable role in the international community.Such being the case, the present thesis attempts to conduct a research on the English translation of the report delivered to the 17^th NCCPC by President Hu Jintao in light of skopostheorie, the core theory of German functionalist translation school, and hopefully shed some light upon how translation and politics are interrelated to each other. In addition, such basic techniques in the study of translation as exemplification and contrastive analysis are applied with a view to possibly revealing some methods and strategies that the translator employs in the translation of the Report. In the meantime, the author floats several of his own reflections and suggestions to the translation in hopes of enlisting some constructive and insightful enlightenments and perspectives in return. The present thesis can be divided into four chapters as follows: Chapter 1 serves as the theoretical framework for the whole thesis, in which the author casts a glimpse at the course of development of the functionalist translation theory, including the translation brief and the three rules of skopostheorie, enumerates one after another several sub-theories of skopostheorie. Following that, the two translation methods proposed by Christiane Nord are discussed, so is the loyalty principle, with special emphasis on the distinction between loyalty and fidelity. In this way, solid and sound theoretical foundations are laid for the research of the thesis.Chapter 2 is devoted to the case study. In this chapter, the author embarks on the general classification of political texts before summarizing the content of the whole report as well as the functions it intends to perform. The author then takes a stylistic and cultural approach respectively to the analysis of the Report. In analyzing the cultural features of the Report, the author highlights certain places that might pose considerable difficulty to or even challenge translation in a way on account of cultural differences so as to pave the way for the coming Chapter three.Chapter 3 functions as the backbone and pivot of the whole thesis. The author here starts from the loyalty principle and demonstrates how the three agents: the producer, the translator and the addressees are related to one another on the basis of loyalty principle in the case of the Report, followed by the discussion of the general strategies that are normally employed in the translation of political texts. After that, the author elaborates on the text typology theory advanced by Nord as well as the translation strategies. Finally, he applies skopostheorie to the analysis of and study on the English translation of the Report in an overall manner by employing such methods as exemplification and contrastive analysis to disclose certain translational techniques and strategies from both the stylistic and cultural levels. In the meantime, he proposes his own humble perspectives with regard to some of the translation methods and tentatively puts forward his own translations in certain places.In Chapter 4 and the conclusion part, the author explores what he believes should be reckoned as the abiding principles in the translation of political texts in light of skopostheorie, shares with the readers some of his reflections, enlightenments and thoughts through the whole process of thesis production and illustrates the significance as well as the insufficiencies of the present research in expectation of being able to provide his own humble suggestions on translation for the researchers of political translation in future.