The Application Of Semantic Translation And Communicative Translation In Translating Chinese Political Writings

The political writings stand for policies and guidelines of a country. They relate tothe country’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and fundamental profit. They relate to therelationships between different countries and different regions as well as influence thedeveloping trends of the global situation. The political writings can be classified into twokinds: official document and political essay. Political writings are mainly issued byauthority or government to reveal policies and guidelines of a country or to analyze orjudge in answer to certain issues. The political writings are different from other sort ofwritings because the former have reference to domestic or international political affairs.As a result, the quality of the translation work of political writings is of greatsignificance.This thesis tries to research into the translation of Chinese political writings fromthe sentiment of semantic translation and communicative translation. They are twotranslation approaches presented by British translation theorist Peter Newmark in hisbook Approaches to Translation． Buhler classified language into different categoriesaccording to their different functions. Peter Newmark excogitates his text typology andclassifies texts into the expressive type, the informative type and the vocative type. Tosolve the problems of translating different types of texts, he consequently comes up withthe means of semantic translation and communicative translation. They contribute a lot tothe general translation theories and are recognized as Peter Newmark’s most influentialachievement in translation fields. On the basis of semantic translation andcommunicative translation, the author tries to provide principles and possible strategiesfor the translation of Chinese political writings.This thesis is made up of three following chapters:Chapter One introduces Peter Newmark’s semantic translation and communicativetranslation. The author first discusses the background and the theoretical basis, and thenspecifies the two translation skills by collating their differences and similarities. The twotranslation skills cannot be applied separately in practice. Only when the two methods arekept in harmony, would translation be a success.Chapter Two proposes the features of Chinese political writings and languageobstructions in the process of translation. The author first gives an introduction of the classification, stylistic features and the functions of Chinese political writings. And thenlist the differences between Chinese and English. At last the author presents theobstructions in the course of translation. The above analysis looks toward the integratedtranslation methods, principles and suggested strategies.Chapter Three put forward general translation methods, principles and suggestedstrategies in the translation of Chinese political writings according to semantic translationand communicative translation.Finally, the author makes a conclusion that semantic translation and communicativetranslation can act as both practical techniques and theoretical guidance for thetranslation practice of Chinese political writings.