A Study On Chinese-English Translation Of The Report On The Work Of The Government (2000-2013) From The Perspecti Of Chesterman’s Translation Norm Theory

The Report on the Work of the Government (hereinafter, the RWG) is anauthoritative approach for foreigners to get to know China as it makes a thoroughintroduction to the governing principles and policies of the Communist Party of Chinaand the Chinese Government as well as the basic situation of Chinese socialistconstruction in terms of politics, economy and culture and so forth. In this case, thesystematic and theoretical study on it has a great practical significance.Emerged in the1970s, the descriptive normative translation study investigatesthe importance of translation norms in translation process from the perspective oftarget culture. It not only focuses on the text itself, but also probes into other factorsinvolved in the process of translation such as the author of the source text, thehistorical background as well as the target readers etc., which brings inspirations totranslation study. Therefore, the study of the translation of the RWG under theguidance of translation norms will render us a more comprehensive understanding.Based on Chesterman’s norm theory, this thesis probes into the translation of theRWG (from2000to2013) organized by the Central Compilation&TranslationBureau (hereinafter refers to as CCTB), summarizing the content, function, translatinginstitution and the language characteristics of the RWG and investigating howtranslation norms function in the process of its translation through documentaryresearch, text analysis and corpus-based data analysis.It is revealed that firstly, expectancy norms, the accountability norm, thecommunication norm and the relation norm have a great influence upon the translators.They adopt different strategies to conform to the requirements of translation norms.Secondly, translation norms cover different factors in translation activity such as thetext type, the will of the original writer, the target readers and the commissioner of thetranslation and so forth. Translators do not carry out the translation passively; instead,they balance among these factors and produce the most appropriate translation.According to the study, influenced by the political nature of the RWG and theobjective of foreign exchange, how to meet the requirements of the target readers and commissioner of the translation as well as how to transmit the meaning of the sourcetext is the first priority of the translator. Thirdly, in terms of the translation of politicaltexts, translators should apply both literal translation and liberal translation so as toproperly transmit the meaning of the source text.