A Report On Chinese-English Translation Of The 2015 Government Work Report

The Government Work Report is a type of Chinese political texts. It plays an important role in the field of China's politics, economy,culture and diplomacy. It became one of the important media for foreigners to get familiar with China at the same time.Also, its translation promotes the mutual communication and cultural exchange between different countries. Usually, foreign media compare the development of economy and society of different countries and then give their comments and some corresponding suggestions. Bases on this, it is of great importance to translate the Government Work Report. Many Chinese translators have spent all their lives translating the Government Work Report into English. However, compared with other kinds of translation, there still exists so many difficulties in the translation process of the Government Work Report.Translation studies on the Government Work Report has always strengthened the relationship between the translated text and the source text without considering the target readers. Functional equivalence theory which was proposed by Eugene A. Nida, has a profound effect on translators from all over the world. Ruling out the text-centered type,functional equivalence theory pointed out that the key point of translation lies in the relationship between texts and the target readers. Based on this, he established a theory which is centered on the target readers' reaction. Besides, he holds the opinion that the key point of translation is the content of the source text but not the form. As far as the author is concerned, Nida's functional equivalence theory can be used to analyze the translation of the Government Work Report, and the quality of the translation task can be discussed at the same time.This first chapter of the thesis talks about the general account of the research background and significance of the Government Work Report. Chapter two introduces the whole translation process from the perspective of pre-translation, while-translation and after-translation. Before translation, the author needs to know the content and characteristics of the Government Work Report and the requirements of translation.During translation, the author needs to know the translation principles and strategies.After translation, the author should check the English version of it. In chapter three, the author introduces the main content and appliance of Nida's functional equivalence theory briefly. Chapter four chooses several chapters of the 2015 Government Work Report as well as its English version, and analyzes how functional equivalence is realized in the translation from the perspective of the lexical level, syntactical level and textual level. As is known to all that there exists so many differences between Chinese and English, thus we can hardly get a translation version which is absolutely equivalent to the original text.So the translator should choose proper words to achieve the functional equivalence at the lexical level. The language in 2015 Government Work Report is precise and formal,based on which the translator should apply formal expressions to realize functional equivalence at the syntactical level. The big differences between the East and the West,especially the different political and economic systems and the development of science and technology bring many difficulties to the Chinese-English translation of the 2015 Government Work Report. So when translating this kind of texts, the translator should choose some English expressions which are more easily to be understood by the target readers. As a consequence, functional equivalence is realized from the perspective of style. By comparing the original and translated versions, the author found that the English version of the report has realized functional equivalence from the perspective of vocabulary, syntax and text, and the English version has realized functional equivalence by employing some typical and practical translation methods, such as literal translation,free translation and so on. Major findings of the president research, limitations and suggestions are included in chapter five. The author discusses the Chinese-English translation of the 2015 Government Work Report from the perspective of functional equivalence theory, thus studies translation process and its appliance. The purpose of this thesis is to draw a conclusion of some translation strategies of Government Work Report and to provide some suggestions for the translation of similar texts.