On Translating Informative Texts

This translation report depicts the translation of China s Construction Industry Report 2014 (hereinafter referred to as the Report) which was compiled by China Economic Information NET (HK) Limited affiliated with the State Information Center. The Report is a comprehensive description of China’s construction industry in 2013 and the first half of 2014. It covers many fields like politics, economy, science and technology, etc. This translation report describes the whole process of this translation practice, including task description, process description, theoretical framework, case analysis and conclusion, etc. As the Report is aimed at providing information about China’s construction industry for reference by transnational corporations, investment banks and various financial institutions engaged in international investment, trade and production, it can be classified as an informative text. For translating the Report, I chose Reiss’s and Newmark’s text typology as the theoretical guidance and proposed the translation principles of informative texts in light of the classification of text types and their translation strategies. Moreover, some case analyses are made on the translation strategies of informative texts at both lexical and syntactical level, including the translation of technical terms, metaphorical expressions, culture-loaded expressions and zero-subject sentences as well as translation strategies like division of long sentences and adjusting of word and sentence order, which is expected to be helpful for future translation practices.