Translation Of Political Writings: Adaptation Theory And Its Practice

According to Adaptation theory, language use is a continuous process of choice-making. Since translation of political writings is a special kind of cross-cultural communication, translators as communicators have to make different choices and adaptation in this process. The Chinese political writings, as the mouthpiece of the Chinese government, play an important role in communicating with the outside world. The translation of the political writings will actually decide the effectiveness of this communication. But researching on translation of political writings from the perspective of Adaptation Theory is rarely involved. The thesis tries to research Chinese Political writings under guidance of Adaptation Theory.The thesis explores the connotation, essence of adaptation theory, and the relationship between adaptation theory and translation, then expounds an overview of the political writings, including features, function of political writings, the importance of translation of political writings, and factors influencing translation of political writings and solutions. Language and translation studies, usually research from linguistic adaptation and extra-linguistic adaptation using Adaptation Theory. Linguistic adaptation can be divided into lexical adaptation and syntactical adaptation; extra-linguistic adaptation includes mental world adaptation, social world adaptation, and physical world adaptation. Then the thesis further demonstrates rationale for the problems of adaptation theory and practice of political writings translation.People can make choice to use language because the essences of language:variability, negotiability and adaptation. Adaptability is a property of language and adaptation-making is to approach points of satisfaction for communicative needs. So the translator should re-organized text to conform the target reader's linguistic context in practice of translation of political writings. The translator should delete redundant words in the source language to suit Western readers' aesthetic taste, adding interpretation and annotation in translation of Chinese characteristics of vocabulary and expression to conform the target readers' social world and physical world.