A Study On Pragmatic Translation Strategies And Approaches In The Perspective Of Text Types And Text Functions

Pragmatic translation aims to send to readers message with emphasis on the expected effect. To a large extent, it characterizes in its attributes of practicality, reality and wide use, which covers political, economic, social and cultural areas, etc. and differs greatly from literary translation emphasizing artistic and aesthetic values. Pragmatic texts are concerned with large varieties of genres, including "expressive" texts, eg authoritative texts, "appellative" texts, eg tourism texts, "informative" texts, eg technical texts, etc.. As to stylistic characteristics, pragmatic texts have the informative, appellative, and anonymous functions, most of which belong to the informative and appellative texts that Newmark asserts. Different types of texts have different functions and these functions call for respective strategies and approaches to translation. In translation practice, few texts are purely expressive, informative or appellative. Instead, most texts include several distinct functions, with an emphasis on one of the functions. Therefore, the translator must first determine the primary function of a single text, or determine the language function of each part of the same text, combined with the consideration of the intended function of the original text in the target language and the target readership's effect, and accordingly adopt respective translation strategies or approaches.Based on the review of German School of Functionalist Translation Theory, Newmark's typology, and Nida's theory of functional equivalence, the thesis stresses the significant role of the division of text types and text functions on selecting strategies and approaches to pragmatic translation. In the thesis, a large number of translation cases for different texts, e.g. authoritative texts, tourism texts and technical texts are listed to probe into translation strategies and approaches. As to translation strategies, the author asserts the adoption of "domestication" in most cases. As to translation approaches, such key words are mentioned as diction, amplification, omission, conversion, repetition, inversion, negations, division, etc.. Different texts should be translated in different ways. Therefore, in pragmatic translation practice, effective translation strategies and approaches can be utilized with the consideration of different text types, text functions, as well as the different commission and purpose of translation. The thesis's writing is based on German functionalist translation theory, Newmark's text typology, and Nida's theory of functional equivalence and it is also aimed at making contributions to the promotion of both theoretical and practical translation.