On Shifts In Political Document Translation—a Case Study Of The Translation Of Hu Jintao’s Speech Commemorating The90^th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The CPC

Political documents refer to the remarks and speeches of national leaders, government documents and work reports. They not only play important roles in communicating and implementing state policies, but also reflect the will of the governments, and represent the people’s fundamental interests. Therefore, with the accelerating of the globalization and the further implementation of China’s reform and opening-up policy, the translation of political documents is becoming more important.Translation of political documents calls for "faithfulness" and "smoothness." In the translation of political articles, we hold a much more stringent standard for faithfulness. This is because the political document deals with state key policies as well as the basic policies, of which the slightest negligence can cause serious consequences. In the mean time, in the translation of political documents we should pay special attention to smoothness. On the one hand, Chinglish should be avoided; on the other hand, the version should be made clear and to-the-point so as to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding.In order to achieve faithfulness and smoothness, we often need to make various shifts in translation. This is especially so in view of the language features of political documents.The present paper examines the shifts in political document translation, taking as a case study the translation of Hu Jintao’s speech commemorating the90th anniversary of the founding of the CPC. The analysis is carried out at lexical, syntactic, semantic, discourse, and rhetoric levels with regard to the shift in the translation of political documents.It is hoped that the in-depth analysis and exposition made on the translation shifts of political documents in the present study may shed some new light on the translation of political documents.