Condensed Translation Report On Research Outcomes Of Overseas Think Tanks

Condensed translation with strong purpose is a particular translation method, which significantly reduces the length of the original text and extracts its essence. It processes the original text generally based on the requirements of the readers and can satisfy their needs of quick reading and re-publishing in a society of knowledge explosion.This report discusses the condensed translation project of the twelfth and thirteenth period of Global Think Tanks Observation, circulated inside the Development Research Center of the State Council. The author and her team (other six translators) condensedly translate 30 foreign think tanks’ research outcomes related to China into 350 Chinese characters each passage. With a certain scale (13 seminar/lecture introductions,34 articles,6 reports and 3 papers, all together more than 160 thousand words in English) and limit time (2 months), this project has been accomplished successfully led by the author.Under the guidance of Skopos theory, the author makes clear the purpose and requirements of the project, summarizes three types for the original articles, namely logical text, text with subtitles and text with unclear logic, and accordingly sets three ways of generalizing core ideas of original texts, namely grasping key words, scrutinizing the framework, and inducing and summarizing. Furthermore, she applies in her translation process 3 ways of processing information of original texts:reducing and cutting, editing, and compression. The author also makes the target texts conform to China’s ideology and achieve the goal of "political correctness" through fuzzy processing of political sensitive words.This report discusses the process and strategies of condensed translation with instances of evidence from source and target texts. With analysis of 6 examples from 3 types of texts, the author illustrates the application of her 3 ways of generalizing core ideas of original texts. The key of condensed translation is to summarize the original text precisely, and her 3 tactics are effective. The author hopes to provide some experiences for practice in this field.