A Tentative Study On The English Version Of Government Work Report From The Perspective Of Semantic And Communicative Translation

For a long time, due to the sensibility and seriousness of political writings, the translation researches concerning political writings are far from enough, not to mention the Government Work Report. With the development of society and speeding up of economic globalization, communications between China and other countries in the world have become increasingly frequent. Therefore, political texts become the most direct and authoritative source of information for the outside world to know about China. To let foreigners know the exact meaning of the Government Work Report, translation plays an important role. On the one hand, the translation should be faithful to the source text; on the other hand, foreigners are potential readers. These two points should both be considered during the process of translation.The semantic translation theory and communicative translation theory were first put forward by Peter Newmark in his book, Approaches to Translations. These two theories are the core content of Newmark’s translation theory. This thesis aims to adopt the semantic translation theory and communicative translation theory to deal with how to transmit the spirit of the source text in translation and make the translation accepted by foreign readers with the precondition of preserving its Chinese characteristics, and to improve the quality of translation and promote communication.This thesis is consisted of six parts, including the introduction and conclusion. The introduction puts forward the background, purpose and significance of the research. Chapter2is the literature review. It presents the basic ideas of semantic translation and communicative translation and also makes a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of these two theories. Chapter3is the theoretical description of the Government Work Report. It offers its content, function as well as its features from the lexical, syntactical and rhetorical perspectives. Chapter4briefly illustrates the factors that influence the translation of the Government Work Report. The researches have been carried out from the subjective factors of the translator and the objective factors of culture. The conclusion is that cultural factors have deep influence on the translation of the government work report. Chapter5provides the reasonable methods for political translation and it is the core of this thesis. Firstly, it summarizes the translation methods and strategies such as amplification, omission, conversion and restructuring from lexical and syntactical levels. Then through empirical analysis of examples, it is concluded that semantic translation strategies should be applied first in order to preserve Chinese characteristics to the largest extent and be faithful to the spirit of the source text. When obstacles of understanding are caused by the using of semantic translation strategies, communicative translation strategies may be applied. By using different translation skills, it is possible to transmit the ideas of the source text smoothly. At last, through detailed analysis of cases, four guide principles of translation are proposed:faithfulness, accuracy, acceptability and naturalness. To sum up, in the process of translation, the translator should use these two translation theories alternately and make them complementary with each other, thus to accomplish the translation perfectly with the purpose of transmitting Chinese culture and enhancing intercultural communication.