A Study On Transformations In English Versions Of 2010—2019 Chinese Government’s Annual Work Report From The Perspective Of The Identification Theory

Against the backdrop of China’s rising comprehensive national strength,the fear of China threatening other countries’ development alternately raises and recedes,and people abroad harbour growing desire for an understanding of the country.On top of that,Chinese President Xi Jinping has given high priority to the initiative that translators must be qualified to disseminate Chinese opinions.Therefore,it is imminent to promote Chinese foreign publicity.At the same time,it is undeniable that remarkable progression has been made in this aspect through constant exploration.One significant method for China to go global is the English version of Chinese Government’s Annual Work Report released every March,which gives detailed explanation of how China has performed in the past year(s)and what it will do in the following year(s)from the perspective of economy,culture,military and so on.The translations have been polished and transformed year in,year out in order to present Chinese philosophy precisely and this is evidence of translators’ pursuit of excellence.One purpose of translating Chinese Government’s Annual Work Report is to project China’s new image and reduce prejudice against and misconception about China from the overseas audience,so the viewpoints in rhetoric start to be introduced to the study of translated government materials.In recent years,new focus has been put on the identification theory in the world of rhetoric and with its inspiration,scholars of translation studies hold the belief that when government materials are translated,even greater emphasis should be laid on the targeted audience as well as faithfulness to the original text.On the basis of previous relevant research,this study reexamines and sorts out guidance of the identification theory on translating government materials.Meanwhile,English versions of 2010—2019 Chinese Government’s Annual Work Report are selected to explore their transformations from four levels—lexicon,syntax,discourse cohesion and tone.By means of corpus embellishment software and search software,it is seen that(1)for some frequently used words in original versions,translators replace previous translations with entirely different ones or diversify wording;(2)with respect to syntax,the rigid correspondence of word order between Chinese and English is abolished through using passive voice more widely and selecting subjects more flexibly;(3)as to discourse cohesion,the relevant analysis from angles of transitional words and reference shows that it has been strengthened;(4)in terms of tone,it is weakened by the means of omitting some adverbs and employing more first-person pronouns.All those transformations are equivalent to how translators gradually adopt expression patterns the targeted audience prefer,which confirms the guiding significance of the identification theory to translation studies.English versions of Chinese Government’s Annual Work Report are taken as benchmarks of other translated government materials.Through the analysis of transformations in translated 2010—2019 Chinese Government’s Annual Work Report,this study makes a conclusion that the increasingly great emphasis is put on the targeted audience and it proves the identification theory’s guidance on the practice.By doing so,this study attempts to provide a reference to how to further improve English versions of the impending Chinese Government’s Annual Work Report and other translated government materials at all levels,thereby facilitating the dissemination of Chinese concepts.