German Functional Approach To The C-E Translation Strategies Of The2011Government Work Report

With more and more exchanges and cooperation in various fields betweenChina and other countries, the outside s curiosity to learn more about China isgradually rising. In this process, translation plays a decisive role. The2011Government Work Report (also called The Report on the Work of the Government,hereinafter referred to as the GWR), reflects the latest, the most authoritative andaccurate government work conditions at present and puts forward future plans.Nevertheless, analyses of its translation strategies have remained few and far fromoverall and concrete. As a political document possessed of time-sensitiveness, itdemands timely and accurate probe into the translation strategies. With theguidance of German functionalism, this thesis aims at conducting a thorough,precise and specific research on the translation strategies by analyzing andcomparing some Chinese and English examples excerpted from the2011GWR, soas to provide useful reference and advice for the future political documents.This thesis gives a summary of the major ideas of German functionalism, andprobes into the guidance of these theories to the study on the C-E translationstrategies of the2011GWR. On the basis of analyzing the linguistic characteristicsand translating principles of the GWR, this thesis studies the translation strategiesof the2011GWR from four levels: lexical, syntactical, discoursal and rhetorical.Through illustration analysis, many translation strategies prove to be feasible inthe study, for example, at the lexical level, free translation can be used in thetranslation of typically Chinese words; at the syntactical level, addition of asubject or voice conversion can help make a non-subject sentence complete; at thediscoursal level, cohesion can be achieved by adding reference words andconjunctions; at the rhetorical level, literal translation can be applied to the translation of parallel structures. Application of these translation strategies canmaintain the information consistency, overcome the cultural obstacles and achievethe communicative purpose in the translation process.This thesis concludes that the English translation of the2011GWR is across-cultural communicative activity with target readers as the center and targetculture as orientation; German functional translation theories are suitable for thestudy on the2011GWR translation strategies and provide necessary theoreticalguidance for it; the2011GWR translation strategies are of great practicalsignificance by offering reference for the translation of future political documents.