An Analytical Study Of Official English Translation Of Hu Jintao’s Report At The17th Party Congress

Political documents involve the Chinese government’s political, economic, cultural and diplomatic policies. It is an important channel through which foreign readers know about China’s politics and culture. Among political documents, the official documents and reports are extremely important. Therefore, increasing academic attention is been paid to the translation of these reports from Chinese into English.The present thesis, based on Juliane House’s theory of overt and covert translation, Reiss1text typology theory, and the skopos theory, attempts to analyze some typical examples selected from the official English version of Hu Jintao’s report at17th Party Congress with the aim to prove the rationality and feasibility of applying the principle of combining overt and covert translation in the translation of political documents.The study yields the following major findings:The choice between overt translation and covert translation strategies depends on the type and purpose of the text. According to Reiss’ text typology theory and the skopos theory, Chinese political documents belong to the mixed-type text. Take Hu Jintao’s report at17th Party Congress as an example. Some information of the report is closely connected with China’s unique culture and politics, so in order to achieve cultural and political communication, overt translation is more suitable. However, owing to the ideological differences, sometimes overt translation may cause misunderstanding by foreign readers. This is where covert translation can be very helpful. Therefore, in the translation practice of Chinese political documents, the principle of combining overt translation and covert translation seems to be of both practical and directive significance.This thesis falls into five chapters. Chapter One is a general introduction, which includes a general description of the thesis, the objective and significance of the thesis and the overall structure of the thesis. The second chapter is literature review. It begins with a brief account of some previous researches on political documents done by both domestic and overseas scholars, followed by a detailed introduction of Juliane House’s theory of overt and covert translation. After that, Reiss’ text typology theory and the skopos theory are briefly discussed. Chapter Three includes two parts. One is about political documents’ function and classification, and the other is about the factors affecting C-E translation. Chapter Four is the main part of the thesis. It mainly reveals how the principle of combining overt and covert translation is functioned in the practice of translating political documents. Chapter Five is the conclusion part. In this part, limitations and suggestions for further studies are put forward.Through a detailed analysis of the report mentioned above, a conclusion is made that further researches on the application of overt and covert translation strategies in the process of translating political documents by fully considering the factors affecting the translators’translation process may put forward some valuable advice about the translation principles and methods of political documents.