On The English Translation Of Xi Jinping's Speeches In The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

With the strengthening of China's national power,China's international status increases with each passing day.The voice of China arouses more and more attention in recent years.At the same time,there exist some prejudices and misunderstandings of our countries,resulting in communication barriers of politics,economy and culture among nations.In order to get rid of the obstacles of this communication,we should present more of our country to the other world.As the carrier of information and culture,the translation of political speeches plays a vital role in the international communication,and it is the bridge for the foreigners to gain a better understanding of the socialism country with distinctive Chinese characteristics,helping to strengthen the friendly relationship,promoting the trade contacts,establishing a good image on the international stage.However,the previous studies on political speeches have focused on summarizing the approaches and skills of the C-E translation of political speeches,which lacks the guidance of the theory.Besides,the research lacks in analyzing all the factors influence the translation of political speeches.This paper is attempting to apply a new theory of pragmatics called “Adaptation Theoty” to analysis the English translation of political speeches.Especially for the abroad speeches which delivered by Xi Jinping.According to Verschueren's Adaptation Theory,the choice of language is a process of dynamic adaptation between the context and language selection.Translation,as a cross-cultural communication,is also a dynamic process where choice-makings take place within the target language.Therefore,the Adaptation Theory and translation have striking similarities.According to Verschueren's Adaptation Theory,the properties of language are variability,negotiability and adaptability.The four dimensions of language adaptability mainly contain the contextual correlates of adaptability,structural objects of adaptability,dynamics of adaptability and salience of adaptability.What's more,the use of language is a continuous process of choice-making.As far as the author is concerned,there involve two different transformations of language,namely,making choices on the inner and exterior layers.The source language and target language possesses the property of variability,negotiability and adaptability.The inner factor of language refers to the linguistic structural layers,such as the lexical level,syntactic level and discourse level.The exterior factors involve the non-linguistic factors,namely,communicative context,including physical world,mental world and social world.Adaptation to the communicative context of the English translation of Xi Jinping's speech is presented by the adaptation to the physical world,mental world and social world.Structural adaptation is revealed by the adaptation at lexical,syntactical and discourse level.Dynamic adaptation is reflected by the translators' dynamic choice-making in language and strategies.Salience of adaptation is demonstrated by the translators' conscious choice-making at various levels in the process of translation.In order to achieve the expected communicative effect,translators need to consciously distinguish the explicit and implicit information and adopt appropriate translation strategies.What's more,the four dimensions are not isolated,while they work with each other.Translators should choose proper strategies after comprehensive consideration in the process of translation.Besides,this thesis assumes that adaptation should be used to a certain degree.At last,the translation of political materials is a continuous process of making choices and adaptation,and the translator should not only make adaptation on the linguistic level but also make adaptation to the target language audience,including the mental world,social world and physical world.In this process,the translator can select the appropriate approaches of translation.This thesis aims to provide a new branch of perspective for the study in this field,in the hope of offering some enlightenment and guidance in the work of C-E translation on the political speeches to achieve a better and more successful communication.It also serves as reference and guidance for the translation of other political writings in the future.