On Chinese-english Translation Of The Report On The Work Of The Government In2013from The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

The Report on the Work of the Government is one type of Chinese political texts,which play an important role in the fields of economy, politics, culture and diplomacyin China. As one of the important mediums for foreigners to get knowledge of China,its translation promotes the cultural exchange and mutual understanding betweencountries of different political systems. Indeed, many Chinese translators havedevoted their lives to translating the Report on the Work of the Government intoEnglish and other languages. However, there is still much room for improvement inthe translation of the Chinese Report on the Work of the Government into English,compared with that of other kinds of translation. For quite a long period of time,studies and discussions of such translation have focused on the comparison betweenthe translated text and the source text rather than the target receptors.Since the functional equivalence theory was proposed by Eugene A. Nida, it hasa profound impact on the translation studies both at home and abroad. Breaking awayfrom the text-centered mode, functional equivalence theory which identifies reader’sresponses as one of the basic criteria of translation shifts the traditional focus from therelationship between original texts and target texts to the readers of the target text.Moreover, it gives priority to the meaning rather than the forms of the original texts,and emphasizes the function of the language. The author holds that Nida’s functionalequivalence theory can be used to analyze the translation of the Report on the Work ofthe Government from a new perspective, so that the quality of the translation can bejudged as well.This thesis begins with the general account of research background andsignificance, and the review of previous related studies. Then the development offunctional equivalence theory and its main contents are completely introduced inchapter three. Chapter four addresses the first research question. By analyzing theoriginal Chinese Report on the Work of the Government in2013(RWG2013) and itsEnglish version, how functional equivalence is achieved in the translation in terms ofmeaning, style, and culture is discussed. Because of the great differences between theChinese language and the English language, it is impossible to get a translation whichis absolute equivalent to the original text. The translator makes necessary adjustments in the form of the language so as to achieve the functional equivalence on level ofmeaning. The language used in the Chinese RWG2013is precise and formal. Thetranslator applies formal expressions in English, thus the English version realizesfunctional equivalence in aspect of style. The huge cultural gap between the East andthe West, especially the different political systems, brings many difficulties to theChinese-English translation of the RWG2013. The translator transfers the accuratepolitical connotation, and at the same time, chooses English expressions which aremore easily to be accepted by the target culture. Therefore, functional equivalence isrealized in terms of style.Through the comparative study between the original and translated versions, theconclusion is reached: the English version of the report has realized functionalequivalence in aspects of meaning equivalence, stylistic equivalence and culturalequivalence; and the English version has realized functional equivalence byemploying the translation methods of literal translation, substitution, explanation andso on. The author discusses the Chinese-English translation of the RWG2013from theperspective of functional equivalence theory, thus the theory studies and translationpractice can be influenced. The purpose of this thesis is to broaden the application offunctional equivalence theory as a tool for text description and analysis, and toprovide some reference for the Chinese-English translation of political texts.