A Study Of C-E Translation Of University Webpage Profiles: A Functionalist Approach

The present study echoes to the Chinese universities' pressing need of strengthening their international reputation by improving translation of university webpage profiles.Though applied translation studies have enjoyed great development in China,the translating of university webpage profiles has not drawn wide attention and is far from enough either in width or depth.In this thesis,translating is not just to seek a source language(SL)-target language(TL) linguistic equivalence;it is often an adaptation process depending on factors of target readers' culture.This qualitative study adopts the German functionalist approach;meanwhile, considering many deficiencies in this approach particularly at the micro-level analysis, the author applies theme-oriented information-highlighting principle and economic-conciseness principle,by which information is differentiated according to its attributes and values to target readers,with each requiring specific translation strategy.Such an integrated theoretic framework is unprecedentedly formed for the present study.Fresh attempts are made in conducting parallel texts analysis both from macro and micro levels which range from information structure,information-prominent content,syntax to lexicon as to reveal how to achieve better translation according to the framework.Skopostheorie and theme-oriented information-highlighting principle are adopted at the macro level,simply including structure and content,for the purpose of figuring out purposes,functions,and information types of the target text;whereas, intratextual coherence,function plus loyalty,and economic-conciseness principle together with five supportive norms are applied to conduct qualitative analysis at the micro level.Information attributes and values are identified,and translation strategies together with revised target texts are provided.