On Translation Of Government Documents Under The Guidance Of Newmark's Text Typology Theory

Newmark's text typology theory is a practical translation theory in western translation theories.Newmark puts forward that texts can be divided into three types according to their functions,the expressive,the informative and the vocative.He also proposes that two translation strategies can be used in translating different types of texts:communicative translation and semantic translation.Semantic translation attempts to convey the exact contextual meaning of the original to the target readers.Communicative translation attempts to produce on its readers an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original.Based on the translation of the Oakland Workforce Development Strategic Plan,this thesis explores the feasibility and specific methods of English-Chinese translation of government documents under the guidance of Newmark's text typology theory.The Oakland Work force Development Strategic Plan,issued by the City of Oakland government,USA,-is a government document and belongs to the informative text,but it has some features of the vocative text.This thesis firstly discusses the general features of the government documents and then analyzes the language features of the translation material from lexical,syntactic and discourse,such as frequent use of proper nouns,acronyms,passive voice,long and complex sentences,substitutions and parallelism,etc.And then,this thesis analyzes the general translation principles guiding the translation of government documents and siunmarizes the specific methods used in translating the Oakland Workforce Development Strategic Plan,such as literal translation,literal translation with annotation,addition,division,reshuffle,conversion of passive voice,reiteration as a device for cohesion and so on.In conclusion,the author of this thesis holds that it is feasible to use this text typology theory to guide the translation of government documents.In translation practice,the translator should not only accurately convey information to the target readers,but also try to make the translation conforms to the expression of the target language so as to improve the readability of the Chinese version.