Study On C-E Translation Model Of Publicity Material From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

With ever-increasing economy and rising international prestige, China has drawn intense attention from the world which is eager to know more about China, and China is eager to integrate into the world. Against this context, the past half a century saw great promotion in China’s international communication since the foundation of New China in1949. There is no doubt that translation is of great importance in international communication since the effect of international communication largely depends on the quality of translation. However, conspicuous mistakes can be found in publicity material translation, including official documents, tourist information, news report etc., which leads to failure in international communication, or even damage to China’s national image. Research in publicity material translation is lagging far behind the development of international communication. From the perspective of skopostheorie, this thesis examines the translation process as a whole. Case study is carried out on translation of news report, political texts and tourist texts, and its specific translation brief and principles are drawn up respectively. Based on the analysis of translation examples, the thesis attempts to provide a "top-down" translation model for reference to translators working on this field.German functionalist approach emerged in the1970s. It broke with the previous research tradition which is text-oriented, and shifts the focus on the target-readers and communicative function of translation. Within the framework of functionalist approach, translation is regarded as a kind of activity initiated by human with a certain purpose, rather than switching codes between languages, which shifts the focus to other factors involved in translational action and broadens the scope of translation study. The functionalist approach is considered to be practical and helpful in guiding non-literary translation, as well as publicity material translation which falls into the non-literary translation. Skopostheorie, founded by Vermeer, is the cornerstone in the functionalist approach. The core of skopostheorie is that the skopos or prospective function of translation determines the choice of translation strategies. The standard by which the translation is judged is not equivalence, but whether it has fulfilled the prospective function. The previous studies on publicity material translation from the perspective of skopostheorie mainly discussed the transformation of text surface structure and laid the emphasis on the choice of translation strategies and techniques, which is actually not the focus of skopotheorie. Based on the guidelines of skopostheorie, the thesis focuses on the formulation of translation brief and how it specifies the translation strategies. The thesis holds that a translation brief should be proposed before embarking on the translation. It helps formulate translation principles which provide reasons for the choice of translation strategies and techniques. The "top-down" translation model views the skopos of translation as the guideline which will condition translators’action in order to effectively realize the prospective skopos of translation.