Contextualizing Chinese-English Translation Of Political Texts For International Communication Within The Framework Of Chesterman’s Translation Norms

In recent years,Chinese-English translation of political texts for international communication has assumed greater importance to help China engage effectively with international audiences and increase cultural soft power.Given its significance,this type of translation is an institutional practice featuring a multi-stage process with clearly defined roles in translating,proofreading and finalizing.Therefore,research on institutional translation will be more insightful if such study contextualizes the dynamic process,and product that is undergone multiple revisions than merely listing translation strategies to examine linguistic equivalence and text function.As a translator for a political text commissioned by a prestigious government-sponsored publisher,I conduct a phenomenological case study,and employ Chesterman’s translation norms as an analytical tool to describe and explain my translation process,and the product undergoing the first two stages of translating and proofreading.My research contributes to interdisciplinary cooperation between political discourse analysis(PDA)and descriptive translation studies(DTS).This paper shows that repeated collocations result in the abstraction of political language,predisposing non-native translator to collocation errors.The translator should have expert knowledge of the subject matter to reproduce idiomatic expression.Since political discourse is highly authoritative,consistency with previous wording is imperative through proficient use of CAT tools.High degree of consistency is obligatory for core terminology and specialized concept,while concordance with general knowledge and stylistic marker is optional.Revision minimizes errors.Nevertheless,the translator should guard against hyper-revision,under-revision,and over-revision in both self-revision and other-revision.Rhetorical devices in Chinese political texts can be categorized into hyperbole,metaphor,chengyu,personification and parallelism.The translator should aspire to achieve rhetorical communication that prizes communicative effectiveness above aesthetic effect lest the readers misunderstand the message and have negative associations.When transmitting political concepts such as Marxism-based term and military metaphor that are most prone to cause cultural dissonance,the translator can adopt "justified accommodation" to avoid "unaccommodating sincerity."Incorporating my rough translation and the monolingual proofreader’s revised version,the Appendix itself can shed light on the distinction between linguistic competence and translation competence,and on choices of non-native translator and native editor to balance between accuracy,naturalness and readability.