A Study On Translation Of Political Writings From A Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

As one of the few socialist countries in the world, China has long been underharsh attacks and criticisms of the Western capitalist world for historical and politicalreasons. With the reform and opening up, China’s economy and national strength havebeen developing rapidly and China is exerting greater and greater influence on theworld. China’s take-off is amazing, so more and more foreigners hope to have a deepunderstanding of this emerging power. Meanwhile, as a country emphasizing politicsfor long, politics has naturally become the cultural focus of the nation. In order toproject an image of a big power, China is committed to the publicity of itself. Politicsbeing a part of culture of the country, political publicity is incomparably important.As a special genre, political writings cover a wide range: domestic and internationalpolitical affairs, declarations, government documents, statements, questions andanswers at press conferences and so on. Foreigners can know more about China’spolicies and political landscapes through its political writings. Therefore, thetranslation of political writings is also important. Besides, political writings concernthe sovereignty and territorial integrity of a country, relationship between countries aswell as the world development trend, so the requirement for the accuracy in thetranslation of political writings is very high. In all, the translation of political writingsshould be taken seriously.According to Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory, the choice of language is aprocess of dynamic adaptation between the context and language selection.Translation, as a cross-cultural communication, is also a dynamic process wherechoice makings take place within the target language. Therefore, the AdaptationTheory and translation have striking similarities. The Selected Works of DengXiaoping, a collection of about209articles and speeches of Mr. Deng Xiaoping from 1938to1992, covers the fields of politics, economy, culture, military and diplomacy.As a collection of typical political writings, The Selected Works of Deng Xiaopingboasts language which is rigorous and concise, profound and simple, and stronglogical persuasion and appeal. Therefore, in this thesis, the author attempts to use theEnglish version of The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping for a case study and takeVerschueren’s Adaptation Theory as the theoretical framework to explore thetranslation of political writings from four levels: contextual correlates of adaptability,structural objects of adaptability, dynamics of adaptability and salience of adaptation.Finally, the author comes to the conclusion that in the process of translating TheSelected Works of Deng Xiaoping, the translator has to adapt a number of factorsconsciously or subconsciously, ultimately choosing exact words, proper syntacticstructures and discourse patterns to produce a would-be perfect translation. TheAdaptation Theory has a strong explanatory power to the translation process. It alsoserves as reference and guidance for the translation of other political writings in thefuture.