A Study On The English Translation Of 2013 Report On The Work Of The Government From Reiss’s Text Typology

With the rapid development of China’s economy and its overall national strength significantly improved, China has expanded voice in the international arena. China needs to let her voice heard by the world while the world is paying close attention to China. The premier of the state delivers the Report on the Work of the Government(hereinafter referred to as “RWG”) of the year at the annually National People’s Congress, and releases it and its English version through media. The 2013 RWG reviews the achievements and problems during the past five years and puts forward suggestions for the government work of this year. The RWG includes all aspects of our country’s development such as economy, politics, culture, education, people’s livelihood, ecology, diplomacy, etc. Therefore, the English version of the RWG has become the best medium for foreigners to know about the situation of China’s development. Meanwhile, the criterion and quality of the English translation of the RWG have become especially important.In view of this background, by studying the 2013 RWG and its English translation under the theoretical framework of Reiss’ s text typology, the paper first conducts a comprehensive and systematic study on the RWG translation at the lexical, syntactical and textual levels and explores the corresponding translation strategies; second, the paper comprehensively analyzes the political features of the RWG and puts forward the translation strategies of the political words; last, the paper tries to draw a conclusion of the translation criteria of the RWG. As Reiss’ s typology is of good operability for the English translation of the RWG, the paper closely integrates the theory with the RWG, reaching a conclusion that the translation criteria of the content-focused texts in Reiss’ s typology, namely, invariance in transfer of their content and the orientation to the target language, is also adapted to the translation criteria of the RWG. It is expected that this paper would have some reference values for the translators and translation critics in this field.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction. It first introduces the RWG, and makes literature review of the domestic study in this field, then briefly introduces Reiss’ s text typology, and carries on a feasibility analysis of adapting the theory to the translation of the RWG. Chapter two analyzes the translation of the RWG at the lexical, syntactical and textual level from the perspective of linguistics. Chapter three analyzes the RWG from the political perspective, mainly focusing on the value-laden characteristic, contemporaneous characteristic and Chinese characteristic, then putting forward translation strategies of political words,namely, thorough understanding of the policies and accuracy of words. Chapter four first has an overview of the translation study at home and abroad. Afterwards, based on Reiss’ s translation criteria on content-focused texts, it explores two suitable translation criteria for the RWG: accuracy of information and orientation to the target language. Chapter five is the conclusion.