Research On Chinese-English Political Translation Strategies Concerning Semantic Gaps And Cultural Defaults

As the status of China is being promoted day by day in the international community, its communications with other countries has also increased in a large amount. As the country with the largest population in the world, Chinese processes the largest number of speakers; on the other hand, English as a language that is broadly used in most of the international affairs and conferences, is showing its significance as the most broadly used language.Language is the embodiment of culture, and each language is bearing the unique characteristics of the culture of its speakers in various aspects. In this sense, it is of great importance to let the target-text readers have a thorough understanding of the cultures permeated in source text when the meaning of language is accurately delivered through translation.Translation plays an essential role in the communications between China and English-speaking countries. Because of the differences in political systems, cultures and national conditions between China and the West, misunderstanding may appear if the translation is not good and effective enough. In addition, politics and business are in close relations to the fundamental interests of each country, the translations of the documents in relevance to them should be treated with great care. To reach the successful communications and to promote good neighborliness between China and the West, every single detail in Chinese-English political translation should not be neglected.Since Chinese-English political translation is critical and there exist various problems in it that cause the difficulties, misunderstandings and embarrassments, high-quality Chinese-English political translation is urgently needed. Through the analysis of the research and works done by the previous scholars and translators, it can be concluded what account in the problems of Chinese-English political translation are the cultural defaults and semantic gaps. With the further research and analysis to them and the relevant theories as well as to the large amount of examples appeared in Chinese-English political translation, the concept of translation gap is put forward, deeply explained and exemplified in this thesis. Based on this new concept, a series of solutions are put forward to deal with various kinds of problems in Chinese-English political translation, provided the methodologies for it on the basis of vocabulary and sentence. Furthermore, an observation on the translation of passage and the translation quality on the philosophical level is advocated, hopefully they could have positive effect on the undertakings of Chinese-English political translation.