A Functionalist Study On Chinese-English Translation Of International Conference Speeches And Addresses

Opportunities for China to participate in international conferences have been increasing with the rising influence of China. Speeches and add(?) in th(?) conferences, showing China’s attitude and opinions, should find good expression in translation to enable the target-language receiver to understand China correctly and to protect the China’s national interests. Therefore, the research is of practical significance. The research takes German Functionalist Approaches to translation as theoretical framework to conduct case study of Chinese-English Translation of international conference speeches and addresses, aiming at evaluate the degree of theoretical suitability. Therefore, the research is of theoretical value.The research presents innovation in applying Functionalist views to translation of such a specific field, and in evaluating the suitability through analysis of cases form UNESCO conferences. The research also gives concept, classification and characteristics of such texts as well as characteristics and principles of their translations based on previous researches and carefully selected examples.Methods of literature review, theoretical and case studies are adopted in the thesis. Case analyses are conducted to the examples from summary records of UNESCO conferences to reach the conclusion:Functionalist Approaches to translation show high degree of suitability to translation practice of international conference speeches and addresses; such translations can be perfectly analyzed within the theoretical framework, and the result indicates that the translations basically adopt specified translation methods conforming to the related theories of the school. Therefore, the thesis believes that translation of such texts will be further promoted if with application of Functionalist theories, thus facilitating expanding China’s influence in the international arena and protecting China’s international interests.