A Study On International Publicity Translation From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

With the continuous advancement of globalization and the increase of China’s composite national strength,China is playing an increasingly important role in the international community.At the same time,China hopes to take the initiative to win the recognition and respect internationally,which makes international publicity work particularly important.In recent years,relying on publicity translation to enhance China’s external communication capacity and build China’s foreign discourse system has become an important part of China’s international publicity work,which can play a key role in presenting China to the world.Xi Jinping:The Governance of China Ⅲ(Governance Ⅲ for short)contains important speeches,talks and congratulatory messages by President Xi Jinping from October 2017 to January 2020,covering political,economic,cultural and diplomatic fields,which can be considered as an important window for the international community to know more about China.As an authoritative work presenting the governing philosophy and ruling strategy of the new Central Leadership of the Communist Party of China,Governance Ⅲ is undoubtedly of high research value.The book contains a large number of words with Chinese characteristics,which can convey Chinese culture.Therefore,the translation of these words is not only directly related to the international community’s correct understanding of China’s policies and development,but also to the improvement of China’s external communication and international status as well as the shaping of China’s international image.Skopos Theory provides a new perspective for the study of international publicity translation.According to Skopos Theory,the translation process should be determined by the skopos of translation,that is,the end justifies the means.Therefore,translators are required to choose appropriate translation strategies or methods for a specific translation purpose,aiming at the intended function of the target text on the basis of analysis of the source text.These views provide significant guidance for the English translation of foreign-oriented publicity materials.Based on Skopos Theory,this thesis mainly discusses the English translation of typical words with Chinese characteristic in Governance Ⅲ through qualitative analysis,aiming to answer the following questions:(1)What are the translation principles of Governance Ⅲ?(2)In following the translation principles,what translation methods are adopted in the translation of words with Chinese characteristics in Governance Ⅲ from political and cultural perspectives?The results of the study show that the goal of the translation of Governance Ⅲ is to comprehensively and objectively display the development approaches,concepts and path of contemporary China in a language that the international community can understand,so as to establish a system for international speech to tell,in the right way,the true story of China,make our voices heard and disseminate the glorious history and excellent culture of the Chinese nation and people.Taking into account the translation purposes of Governance Ⅲ,this thesis proposes three basic principles for its C-E publicity translation:fidelity in China’s development reality,fidelity in the original style and fidelity in acceptability of target readers.From a political point of view,considering the great differences in political systems between China and English-speaking countries,words that are incomprehensible due to the differences between Chinese and Western political systems are often translated by means of free translation,so that target readers can better understand the original ideas conveyed by the source text.At the same time,it should be noted that at present,some Western media tend to directly adopt the translations given by China without corresponding annotations in their reports,reflecting that some literal translations of words with Chinese characteristics are being accepted by Western society.Therefore,well-known policies,guidelines and systems which have been proposed by the Chinese government for a long time and are familiar to both domestic and foreign readers are often translated by absolute literal translation,especially numeric abbreviations with Chinese characteristics,so as to promote the effect of China’s political propaganda.In addition,the method of literal translation plus annotation is frequently used in the translation process of words with Chinese characteristics,which can not only retain the original form and cultural connotations of the source text,but also avoid misunderstandings for international readers,thus achieving the expected purpose of international publicity translation and promoting the effectiveness of China’s external communication.From a cultural point of view,simple idioms and proverbs can be translated literally,so as to promote Chinese culture to go global and achieve the purpose of China’s cultural propaganda.Besides,there are great differences between China and the West in terms of historical background,social culture and values,which make it difficult to find English equivalents for Chinese idioms,proverbs,poems and allusions that are rich in cultural connotations.Therefore,for words with Chinese characteristics that are difficult to be understood by foreign readers or easily cause ambiguity,translators often adopt the method of paraphrasing to express their profound connotations,so that target readers can understand Chinese thoughts and ideas more clearly and accurately.In addition,if there are expressions similar to the source text in the target language,the method of borrowing can be adopted to help foreign audiences remove language barriers and close the distance between the source text and target readers,thus improving the acceptability and readability of the target text.What’s more,the method of imitation is frequently adopted when translating words with Chinese cultural characteristics.Translators either only translate the general meaning or key information by omission or supplement the cultural default parts by addition on the premise of conveying the original meaning clearly,so as to make the target text achieve the expected communicative purpose in the context of the target language.