A Report On The Translation Of Weapons Systems And Political Stability: A History

Along with the rapid development of political sciences in the West, an increasing quantity of political texts is being translated from English into Chinese. The translation of political discourse so far, however, has been undermined by neglecting the well-established translation theories(procedures and principles) and the consequent random arrangement of the stages and steps in the translation process and the disappointing effect of the translated products. With the growth of translation studies on the whole, the reporting and study of politics translation has been thriving in recent years, leading to the advent of a variety of reports or articles. Often, however, such reports and studies have failed to consider the translation of political texts in a systemic manner in the light established theories and are of little use to the direction of later politics translation practice. In face of the above problems in politics translation practice and research, this report therefore aims to offer a systemic description and inspection of the process and result of the author’s own practice of translating the political text of Weapons Systems and Political Stability: A History from English into Chinese through the method of theory-based case analysis on the basis of Jia Zhengchuan’s Systemic Translation Procedure and Eugine Nida’s Functional Equivalence Principle.Firstly, through a depiction and examination of the process of the writer’s political translation experience in line with Jia’s Systemic Procedure of Translation, it is found(1) that the process of the writer’s rendering of the political work was complete and well-managed on the level of the major stages as the author adequately manipulated the relationships among the stages of pre-translation arrangement, source text comprehension, target text expression, and post-translation following-ups, but(2) that the procedure was not systemic enough on the level of the steps within each stage of translation as the author partially fails to follow the four steps of panoramic management, environmental connection, internal manipulation, and process realization within most of the four stages of translation work. Secondly, through a description and scrutiny of the translated results of the author’s political translation experience in reference to Nida’s Principle of Functional Equivalence, it is found(1) that the target text as the result of the author’s translation practice was mostly well-written and functionally similar to the original work on the level of text as the author endeavored to follow Nida’s Principle broadly on the textual level through the appropriate use of various translation techniques, but(2) that there were more instances of unsatisfactory translation on the levels of sentences and words as the author did not closely abide by Nida’s Functional Equivalence Principle on lower levels of text through the application of proper translation techniques.Hopefully, this report will be meaningful both practically and theoretically. On the level of practice, its findings will reveal that successful politics translation can be obtained when the translator proceeds along the Systemic Procedure and abides by the Principle of Functional Equivalence. On the level of theory, its methodology may help to develop the methods in the organized description and analysis of politics translation practice in particular and the field of nonliterary translation in general.