An Analysis Of The English Translation Of The2011Report On Government Work From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

With the rapid development of Chinese economy and noticeable improvement ofnational power, China’s international status and world influence has been steadilyimproving these years, which attracts a lot of attention from more and more foreigners whowant to have a better understanding of China. The pace speeds up continuously betweenChina’s going global and the outside world understanding China. The annual Report on theWork of Government (RWG) is the most authoritative document which introduces thelatest Chinese national conditions and next development directions. Therefore, the Reportprovides the outside world with authentic information source to understand China correctly.The RWG is delivered by the Primer to the People’s Congress, which not only gives anaccount of the achievements made by the Chinese people the past year or the past fiveyears, but also outlines the government plans for next year or even next five years. Theannual Report concentrates on politics, economy, education and culture, etc., which have aclose relation with Chinese people’s life. Therefore, the RWG could strengthen exchangesand mutual understanding between China and the rest of the world. The Report uses plainand accurate words, neat and formal language, smooth and compact sentences, specialculture-loaded terms. Therefore, the translators are required to have higher abilities in theprocess of translation due to the Report’s unique language. The translation of the RWG hasa profound influence both on the international image of China and the understanding ofChina by the outside world. Therefore, from the perspective of pragmatic translation, thisthesis takes Jef Vershueren’s Adaptation Theory as the theoretical framework, and analyzesthe translation of the2011RWG based on communicative context adaptation, structuraladaptation, dynamic adaptation and salience adaptation. By doing this, the author attemptsto put forward some enlightenment for the translation of political documents.This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter One briefly introduces the researchmotivation, objectives, significance, data and methodology of this thesis. Chapter Tworeviews the translation studies of political documents and the application and developmentof Adaptation Theory in China. Chapter Three is the theoretical framework of this thesis. Itsummarizes the origin of adaptability, and elaborates some main conceptions of AdaptationTheory. Vershueren argues that the use of language is a process of choice-making andlanguage has three properties and four angles of study and then points out that these aspects are inter-dependent in the formation of Adaptation Theory. Based on theAdaptation Theory, the author argues that translation is also a process of making Choices.In Chapter Four, under the guidance of Adaptation Theory, the author focuses on thedetailed analysis of the application of this theory to the translation of the2011RWG fromthe perspective of communicative context adaptation, structural adaptation, dynamicadaptation and salience adaptation. In this part, the thesis explains some adaptationphenomena and puts forward some useful translation techniques. Chapter Five is theconclusion of this thesis. It points out that the Adaptation Theory has powerful explanationfor the translation of the RWG. Meanwhile, this part also indicates that there are somelimitations in this thesis, and provides suggestions for the further studies in this field.