On The C-F Translation Of China’s Political Texts From The Perspective Of Power Discourse Theory

As a bridge of cultural communication, translation is of vital importance to the cultural development and communication. In the late20th century, the translation study witnessed the coming of "cultural turn", translation was defined from a new perspective, and its focus shifted from the text structure and language study to the process of translation, which deepened the research of the text’s sociality and cultural nature. The power hidden in the text began to be found, and the formation of text was regarded as the combination of discourse and power.However, it is Foucault’s Power Discourse Theory that systematically reveals the primitive truth of translation. As the proposer of Power Discourse Theory, Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, presents that "power" and "discourse" closely links together, the "discourse" is the manifestation of power, at the same time, the "power" restricts the discourse practice. The influence of "power" and "discourse" on the development of human civilization can not be neglected. Power Discourse Theory reveals the fact that the power system controls and influences the process of translation, and reflects the political nature of translation. It provides translation study with a completely new vision and unique insight, and has caused a profound thought revolution of translation.China’s political texts is a crucial part in the field of China’s politic, economy, diplomacy and etc. The translation of political texts is directly related to the cognition and understanding of the international community, more and more attention has been paid to the translation of political texts by scholars and professionals. The Government Work Report is one of the typical types of China’s political texts. As a yearly summary of work for the Chinese government and a new work plan for the year next, it has been published almost every year since1954. What’ s more, Government Work Report is a window for western countries to know the development of China, and plays an important role in the cultural exchange. Based on Michel Foucault’s Power Discourse Theory as the theoretical framework, this thesis takes the English versions of Chinese Government Work Report from2010to2013as the research texts to probe into translation principles and translation strategies of the C-E translation of China’s political texts. This thesis firstly analyzes the definition, classification and features of political texts, and a systematic research is given to the Power Discourse Theory as well as its enlightening influence on translation study. Then the thesis tries to analyze influencing factors on the translation of political texts in light of Power Discourse Theory, such as ideology, language differences and translators, thus translation principles and strategies for the translation of China’s political texts have been found:firstly, the translation of China’s political texts should be loyal to the mainstream ideology of China; secondly, the accuracy should be combined with the characteristics of Chinese language; finally, the translators’awareness of Discourse Power should be enhanced. In the process of C-E translation of political texts, literal translation can be applied to the translation of the political expressions with the mainstream ideology of China. In addition, combining with the characteristics of Chinese language, free translation, amplification, omission, paraphrase can be used to achieve the goal of accuracy in C-E translation, In a word, the translation of political texts is influenced by power factors, but the translation of political texts can serve the ideology and government, so Power Discourse Theory leads translation to become a significant part of improving a nation’s soft power. Reasonable application of translation strategies can promote the mutual understanding between China and other countries as well as the enhancement of comprehensive national power.