The Reception Aesthetics Perspective On The Abbreviation Translation In Report On The Work Of The Government

The annual Report on the Work of the Government(abbreviated as the RWG in following text)summarizes the work of the last year and arranges the work for the next year.It includes domestic and foreign affairs.Due to the comprehensiveness of its content,the RWG acts as an important text-carrier to introduce Chinese culture to the world.At the same time,in order to reduce the length of article and express full meanings with concise words,abbreviations are presented in the RWG frequently.Abbreviation is a special expression way of simple form with complex connotation for Chinese readers who are familiar with its cultural background and language context.But the translation of the abbreviation may be unintelligible for foreign readers since they are lack of the relevant cultural background.Besides,the RWG is a kind of political essay and its contents are required to be precise.Therefore,the C-E translation of abbreviations in the RWG should be precise as well.It is the preciseness of the RWG that consists of the difficulty and key point of the translation.Thus,to discuss the C-E translation of abbreviations becomes the main task of this thesis.On the basis of the latest five years RWG from 2010 to 2014,the author discovers that the existing C-E translation methods of abbreviations are literal translation,free translation,literal translation with annotation and explanatory translation.Some scholars also put forward translation skills of deletion and addition.Moreover,C-E translation strategies of foreignization and domestication have been employed.Translators may be puzzled when faced with so many C-E translation methods,skills and strategies: under a certain circumstances,which translation strategy and skill should be adopted appropriately? With this question,the author analyzes relevant documents and literature information and concludes that addition translation skill can be used to translate Chinese culture-loaded words.The strategy of foreignization might be better to maintain local culture,and domestication is helpful for readers to convey information accurately.To this point,opinions vary among scholars: some thought that literal translation could achieve form equivalence easily between source language and target language but this method often results in ambiguity when understanding the meanings,some thought hat literal translation is more suitable for C-E abbreviation translation in political articles,while others argued that the method of literal translation with annotation make the C-E translated version vivid and straightforward.However,some scholars do not take these methods,strategies and skills as translation standards and they insisted that translators should convert C-E abbreviation translation methods flexibly under various language environments.From the analysis of existing material,scholars have different views even on the same translation method,let alone the diversification of translation methods and strategies.Translation methods are various and translation strategies are in binary opposition.The bewilderment of choosing translation methods hasn't been solved yet.At the same time,these diversified translation methods and skills result in the following translation problems: diversified translated terms,loss of original cultural connotation and improper choice of words.How to evaluate these different translated versions? The perplex caused by the puzzle of translation theory indicates that it needs further researches on strategies and skills of the RWG abbreviation translation.It is an unshakable responsibility for the translator to bridge the cultural gaps between Chinese and English readers,because the background information of abbreviations will be noticeable and understandable for source readers but it often beyond comprehension for target readers.Thus,the translation goal can be achieved and the RWG can be introduced to the world if translators paraphrase information based on reader's previous horizon of expectation,such as cognitive competence,cultural background,language habits and aesthetic preference.Reception aesthetics theory provides this theoretical guidance for translators.From the above,this paper discusses the difficulty of abbreviation translation,explores translation methods and strategies for going out the abbreviations.Moreover,it points out inadequate translated versions and puts forward three principles,namely,unified translated abbreviation terms,cultural equivalence of abbreviations and correspondence of word class,to improve the translated version,hoping to make a little contribution to introducing Chinese culture to the outside world successfully.