Study On The English-chinese Translation Of Hedges-based On UN Parallel Corpus

In diplomatic activities,the use of language is extremely important.Diplomatic language can both be precise and vague under different circumstances.As an important part of vague language,hedges are widely used diplomatic texts.Hedges can be divided into approximator and shield.Approximator can be further divided into adaptor and rounder,and shield into plausibility shield and attribution shield.By employing hedges,one can achieve different kinds of communicative purpose.This thesis establishes a small-scale parallel corpus that consists of 121 UN documents issued between 2012 and 2014(most of which are treaties and meeting reports)and their translation.By adopting quantitative method to analyze the materials inside the corpus,we can summarize the distribution and functions of hedges in diplomatic texts.The finding shows that adaptor is most used hedge while plausibility shield is rarely employed.Besides,the thesis also concludes what kind of translation strategies of hedges are taken by professional translators.It shows that in most cases approximator and shield can be translated into their Chinese equivalents directly.Under a few other circumstances,approximators can be translated in a modified way or even omitted in the translation.Some shields can also be omitted in their translation,but no cases of modification is found from the texts in the corpus.Under a relevance-theoretical framework,the thesis analyzes the reasons why these strategies are taken.It is hoped that through this study,we can reach a deeper understanding about the use of hedges in diplomatic texts,and student translators can improve their performance when translating hedges.