English-Chinese Translation Of Proper Nouns And Terms In English Government Reports

The translation of English government reports, with many proper nouns and terms, aims to transmit the facts and information of the text in a pragmatic manner. In the translation of these proper nouns and terms, translators should consider the features of government reports in order to make sure the translated nouns/terms are concise, standard, and fully transmit their references and concepts.When translating English proper nouns and terms into Chinese, the translators should consider the official and well-accepted translations first. As for those without approved or official translations, translators should refer to the existing translation principles, and adopt appropriate translation strategies to translate them. Besides, translators should utilize the network resources effectively and fully understand the background knowledge of the proper nouns and terms, so that they can make the translated nouns/terms concise and correct.Existing studies on proper nouns and terms are mostly about the names of people, places and the terms in the areas of religion, technology and culture. Even the studies about the translation of government reports mostly concentrate on Chinese-English translation. This paper is based on the translation practices of an official report published on the White House website——Keeping America’s Women Moving Forward. On the basis of concluding and supplementing the three translation principles and the six translation strategies of proper nouns and terms, and the practical experience in translation process, I put forward some methods to better translate the six kinds of proper nouns and terms (the names of people, places, companies, organizations and institutions, plans and policies, acts and the terms) in the report, in order to provide references for the translation of the proper nouns and terms in similar English documents.