English Translation Of Chinese Political Neologisms After The Reform And Opening-up

Vocabulary is one of the most active phenomena in daily life. New words will be added with the springing up of new things, the putting forward of new ideas and concepts, and the happening of new events. The more than 20 years after the reform and opening-up witness China's dramatic changes in all fields such as politics, economy, culture, science and technology. As a result, new things, new guidelines and principles, and neologisms have been rushing out like mushrooms accordingly. All of these bring greater challenge to translation workers. Chinese political neologisms are mirrors through which the changes of Chinese politics can be viewed. Therefore, in order to make those foreign guests better understand the great changes of China's politics during this special period, better introduce China's latest development to them, and promote exchanges in ideas and information, it is the translation workers' task to adopt accurate, idiomatic and understandable English.Although there are indeed quite a few people doing researches in this field. Most of them aim at one certain topic instead of comprehensively and systematically offering the definition, ways of coinage, classifications, features as well as translation principles. Neither the analyses of translation difficulties nor the reasons of mistranslations could be found in these researches. This is why the writer chooses this topic.This paper focuses on the English translation of Chinese political neologisms after the reform and opening-up. The author, firstly, gives the definitions of neologism, Chinese neologism and Chinese political neologism, secondly, makes an overall and systematic introduction about their classifications and features, thirdly, analyzes the guiding translation principles, including "faithfulness", "equivalence" and "intercultural communication", fourthly, the author points out some pragmatic translation standards mainly in terms of comprehension and expression. In doing Chinese political neologism-translation, translation workers should have accurate comprehension of the political connotations and the contexts of the original neologisms. In expression, translation workers, should not only adopt idiomatic English, but also abide by some principles such as the principle of "internal and external disparity" (内外有别原则) and the principle of "three—closenessess" (三贴近原则) and the principle of "respecting the common practices" (尊重惯例). Besides, one more important point should be pointed out, that is, the understandability and mentality of target readers should not be unnoticed. Then, the writer analyzes the difficulties and mistranslations of Chinese political neologism-translation. Finally, based on these principles and standards, the writer puts forward seven efficient translation methods, including domestication vs. foreignization, equivalents, back translation, China English, literal translation, literal translation plus explanation and free translation.