The C-E Translation For Texts Of Political Purpose From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Texts for Political Purpose are dedicated form of texts. Theyrequire special treatments different from everyday articles when it comesto translation. They are usually delivered by the authoritative agencies orleaders towards the wide public or subordinates to address new policies,directions, attitudes, achievement, future plans etc.. In terms of contents,texts for political purpose cover a wide area of topics, very abstract andoften filled with phrases that are unique in China. From the perspectiveof structure, these texts have certain fixed forms of expressions, long andcomplex, parallelism and compound sentences are common. The logic ofsuch texts contains many topical transitions, complicated reasoning andmay act as the key to understand the text structures. The statementsusually are deep in meaning and plain in wording. They are intended tobe extensively accepted. This explains why they are so succinct, easy toremember as well as for proliferation. Texts of this type are demandingin translation quality. It determines the proper communication of the policies and it is especially important for countries that are trying to beaccepted by the international community such as China.Vermeer proposed Skopos theory as the foundation for translationsinvolving political texts. Skopos theory, a branch of Functionalist theoryhighly appreciates the purpose of translation. It suggests that the ultimategoal of translation is to accomplish its intended purpose. The addresseeshave been greatly valued rather than the pure pursuit of the textualequivalence.There are five chapters within the paper. Chapter one is theintroduction. Chapter two reviews the theory of Skopos theory, itsbackground, its contents and features of texts for political purpose.Skopos theory takes translation as a purposeful action. So, the translatorsshould employ proper approach that could achieve the intended results. Itis emphasized that the function of texts dictates the translation strategy.Translation is an action of purpose. Chapter three is a brief overview onthe characteristics of texts for political purpose. Important translation principles have been proposed. This paper reaches a conclusion thatSkopos theory fits translation for political purpose well. This approachsatisfies the primary purpose of such texts. That is to clearly convey themeaning. However Skopos theory alone is not enough under certaincircumstances. Because of this, three principles are suggested for thetranslation of political purpose. Firstly, we should rely on Skopos theoryas the basis. Secondly, translated texts should in proper tones. Lastly, thetranslated texts ought to be fluent. Many examples are been carefullyanalyzed to validate the above points. Due to the function, purpose,particular addressee and addresser, Skopos theory is good for the task.Nevertheless, translations for political purpose have to employ othersupplemental techniques. Chapter four analyzes the effectiveness ofcurrent translations on texts for political purpose. Many examples arecited from working translations. They are been grouped into lexical,syntactic, discourse or cultural sections for evaluations. Extensiveobservations validate the utility of Skopos theory. Last part comes to the major findings in the thesis, its limitations and possible future researchdirections. Skopos theory is beneficial in translation of texts for politicalpurpose. Its role ought to be appreciated as well as those less appealingaspects. Those translation principles proposed in this paper have a broadscope and more adequate in translation practices. The examples of thispaper are mostly from report delivered by the top leader in the partycentral committee. Ideally the results presented here can be tested on awider sources of political texts so as to verify the current findings.