Stylistic Analyses And Translation Of China's Government Work Report(From 2014 To 2016)

With the furthering globalization and the increasing comprehensive national strength,China is becoming far more influential in international affairs and involving more exchanges and co-operations with other countries.People all over the world are concerning themselves more and more with the development of China.However,some important documents and speeches concerning the domestic affairs of the country are not released in other languages simultaneously with the original versions,which more or less blocks international exchanges.As a typical political text,China's Government Work Report(hereafter referred to as GWR)attracts worldwide attention and is released annually in both Chinese and English,for which it serves as a good example for translation studies.Important as it is,a systematic and comprehensive study on the text itself has not been conducted so far.Under these circumstances,it bears both theoretical and practical significance to conduct a thorough research on both the stylistic features of GWR and its translation strategies and methods as well.Being different from other texts,GWR involves a large number of state policies which are of high political sensitivity and contain a wide range of information.All those pose a great challenge to translators.On the basis of text functions,Peter Newmark categorizes texts into different types and proposes semantic translation and communicative translation.They are applicable to the translation of GWR,which is a compound of hybrid functions.According to Nermark's Text-type theory,GWR is analyzed in a detailed way by relating the text functions to the translation strategies.Then the specific translation methods are generalized and suggestions are put forward for the translation of other political texts.This thesis intends to answer the following two questions.First,what are the stylistic features of China's Government Work Report? Second,what are the fundamental strategies and methods in translating GWR into English?Both Chinese and English versions of GWR of the last three years are selected as the data of the research.The whole study is conducted through the following procedures.The author will start with the examination of the Chinese version of GWR to find out the stylistic features.Meanwhile some typical examples are selected.Then,on the basis of Newmark's Text-type theory and semantic and communicative translation,the text functions and translation are analyzed and the main translation strategies and methods are summarized.Based on the study,the thesis draws the following conclusions:(1)The GWR has its distinctive stylistic features at lexical,syntactical,rhetorical and textual levels.Firstly,at the lexical level,a wealth of culture-loaded words,political terms and field terms exist in GWR.At the syntactic level,GWR includes short sentences with obscure logical relations,complex long sentences and zero-subject sentences.Besides,at the rhetorical level,GWR is characterized by prosodic devices(such as three or four-syllabic terms and parallelisms),rhetorical devices(such as metaphor and personification)and Sinicized expressions(such as classical Chinese and numeric generalization).At the textual level,conjunctions,repetitions and referents are used as the three main cohesive devices.(2)The translation strategies and methods are concluded at four levels.Firstly,at the lexical level,both semantic and communicative translation strategies are adopted.When it is semantic translation,the main methods are literal translation,amplification and annotation.When it is communicative translation,paraphrase,omission,neutralization and cultural equivalent are mainly employed.At the syntactic level,communicative translation is largely used.The specific methods include combination,division,modulation and subject supplementation.At the rhetorical level,semantic translation,communicative translation and the combination of them are employed.Specifically,when it is semantic translation,literal translation and amplification are the main methods.Paraphrase and omission are used in communicative translation.Besides,when it is translated both semantically and communicatively,paraphrase is the main method.At the textual level,both semantic and communicative translations are adopted.Literal translation and amplification are adopted in semantic translation.Substitution and omission are the main methods in communicative translation.While exploring the stylistic features and translation strategies and methods of GWR,this thesis also intends to provide references for the translation of GWR at all levels and even other kinds of political texts as well.The study,as is expected,will help improve outward publicity translation,which will ultimately strengthen the cooperation between China and other countries.