Font Size: a A A

A Study Of The Two English Versions Of " The Important Thought Of The Three Represents"

Posted on:2006-02-25Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:G D ZhengFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360182956287Subject:Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The "Important Thought of the Three Represents" put forward by President Jiang Zemin is one of the guiding ideologies of the Communist Party of China. It is the best continuation and creative development of Mao Zedong Thought under the new historical conditions. The translation of this thought bears significant implications on the dissemination of this important thought abroad. The two English versions of the important thought of "The Three Represents" are the work of the authoritative translators from the Beijing Review and the Foreign Language Press, and are acknowledged as the best English versions in the translation of political documents in China. By making an intensive study of these English versions, the author of this thesis wants to learn the latest achievements in the translation of Chinese political documents, and to reveal the relevant translation techniques and their guiding translation theories, both applied in the two English versions, laying a solid foundation for the future study of the translation of political documents.The thesis has two parts which have five chapters. One part is the translation theories, which are in Chapter One, the other part is on integrating the translation with the relevant translation practice, found in Chapters Two to Five. In chapter one, section 1.1 and section 1.2, the author gives a brief survey of the traditional Chinese translation theories and the new theories, which emerged from abroad, focusing primarily upon the linguistic-oriented approaches. In section 1.3 of chapter one, the author summarizes Peter Newmark's semantic vs. communicative translation. Because the semantic vs. communicative translation covers more theoretical ground, has applicability to the wide diversity of text types (including political documents) and related problems in the translation practice, it can be used to explain the translation of the important thoughts of "The Three Represents". In section 1.4 of chapter one, the author's point of view is to integrate the pure translation theory with the detailed translation techniques. The author mentions that, all the sentences in this thesis are picked out by himself from the two English versions of "The Important Thought of the Three Represents". In case of doubt, the author consulted several native English teachers to make sure which translated versions read more idiomatically or awkwardly, and these native English teachers also offered their own new alternatives of translation (see section 2.6, section 3.1 EX18, section 3.2.2.1 EX23, section 4.1.1.2 etc..) The author also offers his own new alternatives of translation (see section 3.2.2.1 EX23, section 3.2.2.3 EX28 EX29, section 3.2.2.4 EX30, section 3.6 EX47, section 4.1.4.2 EX82, section 4.1.5.1 EX83, section 4.1.5.2 EX86 etc..) By analyzing the sentences of both the original text and the translated text, the author explains new translation techniques, thus enriching the existing translation techniques.The second part, which focuses on how to integrate pure translation theory with the translation practice, is from chapter two to chapter five. In this part, integrating Peter Newmark's semantic vs. communicative translation with the detailed translation and basing on the achievements of the experts at home and abroad, the author analyses the sentences of the original important thoughts of "The Three Represents"and its two English versions at the level of semantics syntax discourse as well as rhetorical devices and semantic meaning, and summarizes 53 translation techniques. In chapter two, at the lexical level, the author discusses these techniques: how to render the commendatory / derogatory sense of the original, how to choose the accurate lexical equivalence, collocation, how to choose one word to replace many words, how to translate category words, multiples, and varying words in English. In chapter three, the author, at the syntactical level, discusses these translation techniques: how to tackle the unclear modification resulting from using too many prepositional phrases, alternatives of a prefix attribute and a suffix attribute, the translation of multi-attribute and a long attribute, tackling unclear adverbial references and the placement of multi-adverb, the multi-level coordinate structure, parallelism in translation, joining and dividing sentences, translating a non-subject or a non-object Chinese sentence. In chapter four, the author, at the discourse level, applies Halliday's theory on cohesion to the translation practice, discusses the usage of various cohesive devices as well as the translation of a Chinese topic, especially the translation of a long Chinese topic. In chapter five, rhetorical devices and semantic meaning, the author discusses how to render the images > tone and repetition of the original. In this thesis, the author reveals some new translation techniques a translator often uses unconsciously in practice such as the section 2.1.2 EX6. As for some problems that often occur in translation, the author summarizes them in this way: the translation of multi-attribute and a long attribute in section 3.2.2; in section 3.4, although the translation of multi-level coordinate structure of Chinese is a small one, this issue is easily neglected by some translation practitioners and is not extensively studied in translation circles; in section 4.2, as for the translation of the frequently occurring short ending Chinese sentences in the original, the author discusses how to use Halliday's theory on end focus and end weight to translate them; in section 4.3, the author summarizes various techniques on the translation of a Chinese topic, especially the translation of a long Chinese topic.Based on the study of the two English versions of "The Important Thought of the Three Represents", the author holds the opinion that despite the fact that the Foreign Language Press version is more idiomatic and fluent than the Beijing Review version in some words and sentences, generally speaking, both the two English versions convey the spirit of the original in a way that respects the cultural and linguistic convention of the English-speaking countries; at the same time, reflects some of the stylistic features of the original in the translated text, thus achieving a satisfactory effect in disseminating China's politics to the world.
Keywords/Search Tags:semantic translation, communicative translation, translation techniques, translation practice
PDF Full Text Request
Related items