On C-E Translation Of Premier Wen’s Government Work Reports From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

As China has an increasing position in the international stage and more contactwith other countries, it is of great importance for foreign countries to know China’ssituations, guidelines and policies. The Government Work Report (hereafter referred toas “the Report”) delivered every year is the most authoritative source for theinternational society to know China, so its version’s quality will directly affect ourcountry’s foreign image. Thus, its version, in many aspects, has been studied andexplored by domestic translators. However, generally speaking, these studies are notcomprehensive, lacking the systematic guidance of translation theory. Considering thisphenomenon, taking skopostheorie as the theoretical basis, this thesis gives a systematicstudy of the English version of the Reports which are delivered by Premier Wen from2004to2012. The aim of this thesis is to find the appropriate translation strategies forthe Report and meanwhile provides the reference for other similar political documents.In1980s, skopostheorie, as a new translation theory, is introduced by a Germantranslator, Hans Vermeer. Free from past equivalence-based translation theories,skopostheorie’s focus turns to achieving the version’s expected purpose in the targetsituation. There are three rules in skopostheorie, that is, the skopos rule, the coherencerule and the fidelity rule. Among the three rules, the skopos rule is the first rule adheredto in the translation process. Therefore, to achieve different translation purposes, thetranslation strategies adopted for the version will be various. The targets of the Report’spublicity are readers with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds in the foreigncountries, so the Report’s publicity should first take the needs of these target readersinto consideration. Therefore, skopostheorie, as a translation study for achieving theexpected purpose of the version, has a feasible guidance for the English translation ofthe Report.This thesis’ study of the Report’s English version is mainly based on the three rulesof skopostheorie. Firstly, since the skopos rule is the supreme rule in skopostheorie,which plays a decisive role in choosing the translation strategies for the Report’s version,the thesis first analyzes the translation purpose of the Report which is making the version fulfill the target readers’ acceptability in both linguistic and cultural aspects.Then, owning to the great differences between Chinese and English language expression,the coherence rule in skopostheorie is mainly applied in the translation study of thesyntactical and textual level so as to make the version’s expression more consistent withthe target situation. Finally, as the Report involves our country’s interests and foreignimages, the target text must truly convey the accurate meaning of the source text on thebasis of fulfill the target readers’ linguistic and cultural acceptability. Therefore, thefidelity rule of skopostheorie is mainly applied in the translation of the lexical and therhetoric level. In other words, the specific translation strategies put forward for theReport in this thesis are based on the guidance of the three rules of skopostheorie.