A Functionalist Approach To The C-E Translation Of Political Text

Since the naissance of the development and opening up policy, China plays an increasingly important role in the world. Precise and timeless translation from the outset should be delivered to the world so that our principles and policies in the political, economical and diplomatic fields could be appreciated correctly. Therefore, the translation of Chinese political text becomes an important medium for other countries to know China's current situation.The paper is demonstrated into five chapters.Chapter one is an introduction, which performs the basic framework of the study. It clarifies the significance of the government work report as a piece of political text.Chapter two is the literature review of functionalist translation approach in which relevant theories and their evolutionary process are explained. Current research has been collected on the application of the translation theories in the political text.Chapter three introduces functions and characteristics of the government work report. It also illustrates the instructing role of the functionalist translation theory in government work report translation. Besides, current researches are collected on the translation of the government work report.Chapter four is the main part of the thesis. An analysis on the translation version of"the report on the work of the government"which was presented by Premier Wen Jiabao at the First Session of the 11th National People's Congress on March 5th. Concrete translation principles and strategies are summarized. To be specific, accuracy in translating the political words and sentences is required, so is the faithfulness to adopting the ideology of the source text is indicated and the completeness of the source text, Meanwhile the thesis identifies the factors which influence the translation process, such as linguistic factors, cultural factors and translator factors. In the end, it provides the effective translation strategies which include transfer, substitution, rearrangement and literal translation, etc..Chapter five is the conclusion which summarizes the analysis of the thesis. It also points out the limitation of the thesis and proposes suggestions for further study in this field.The significance of the study is that it proposes specific translation principles and strategies of political text translation under the guidance of the functionalist translation theory. Through analyzing the government work report, it is hoped that the thesis will make contributions to the success of political text translation.