A Study Of Translation Of China-specific Words From The Perspective Of Pragmatic Function

With the improvement of comprehensive national power, China has become the focus of the world. It is urgent for China to promote its core values and culture to the world. China-specific words bear splendid Chinese culture, and a good translation of those culture-loaded words is an effective means to introduce China to the world. At present, many scholars have studied China-specific word translation from different views and gained great achievements. These studies mainly focus on the translation methods of China-specific words based on linguistic theories, such as skopos theory, relevance theory, adaptation theory and translation theories, such as functional equivalence theory, intertextuality theory, eco-translatology. While few scholars ever studied the options of translation strategies of China-specific words concerning pragmatic function. Therefore, this thesis analyzes and summarizes translation strategies of China-specific words from the perspective of pragmatic function. In theory, this study enriches the current researches on China-specific words, while in practice, it improves the expression capability of Chinese culture in inter-culture communication, thus enhancing cultural soft power of China.As Chinese Government Work Report is the government's work summary of the previous year and work plans for the following year, a great many new ideas and new words are used in the report which are all uniquely Chinese. This is the reason why the thesis selects Chinese Government Work Report as data sources. Adopting description and induction as research methods, this thesis first analyzes the pragmatic functions of China English, then summarizes the translation strategies applied by the translator in order to achieve these functions. Through the analyses, this thesis discovers that the translator mainly adopts literal translation, transliteration, literal translation plus explanation and free translation in order to achieve the functions of communicative strategy and marking, and literal translation is commonly used in translating China-specific words. In this way, Chinese culture can be transmitted precisely and effectively.This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction part, including the research background, purpose and significance of the study, as well as the data sources and methodology. Chapter 2 is the literature review which includes the definition and classification of China-specific words, previous research on the translation of China-specific words, and an overview of Chinese Government Work Report(English version). Chapter 3 summarizes two main pragmatic functions of China English: the function of communicative strategy and the function of marking. Chapter 4 focuses on the analyses of translation strategies from the perspective of pragmatic functions. Chapter 5 is the conclusion of the thesis, including major findings and limitations of this study as well as suggestions for the further studies.