On Translator’s Subjectivity In The Political Documents Translation From The Perspective Of Vocabulary

In recent years,with the increasing influence on the outside world,China has more frequent exchanges with the other countries.As a result,Chinese political documents has received increasing attention.As an official document of the People’s Republic of China,the Government Work Report is a representative political document.The English version of annual Government Work Report is an important window for the world to understand China’s political,economic and cultural policies.In 2001,on the basis of Darwin’s Natural Evolution Theory,Professor Hu Gengshen put forward the Eco-Translatology.According to Professor Hu,translation is a process in which a translator will constantly make the “adaption-selection” in order to adapt to the translation eco-environment.In this translating process,the translator plays a central role.This thesis draws on the two concepts of the “adaption-selection” and “translator-centeredness” from the Eco-Translatology.Based on the study of the English versions of the Government Work Report during the period from 2015 to 2017,this thesis tries to illustrate the translator’s subjectivity in the process of translating the political documents from the perspective of vocabulary.As a special political document born in Chinese specific political environment,the Government Work Report has Chinese characteristics in its writing and use of words.First,there appear a large number of political neologisms every year.The connotation of these neologisms is unfamiliar even to some ordinary Chinese people without enough political knowledge;Secondly,in the Government Work Report,a lot of abbreviations,especially some numerical abbreviations,have been used for the sake of the concision.The transferring of these abbreviations requires the translator to accurately understand and convey its connotation and essence through appropriate translating techniques.In addition,Chinese is a language characterized by verbs-domination,therefore,a large number of verbs are used in the Chinese version of Government Work Report,some of them are repeated frequently.How to properly transfer the exact meaning of the same high-frequency verb in different contexts also requires the translator’s flexibility.Comparing the Chinese and English version of the above three types of words,the thesis puts forward that the translator’s subjectivity in translating such political documents as the Government Work Report lies in that the translator can adapt to the distinctive expression style of political documents produced in China’s specific political and eco-environment,and can correctly understand and adopt flexible translation strategies to accurately transfer those political words with Chinese characteristics to make it adapt to the English language eco-environment,and thus to help foreigners correctly understand the Government Work Report.This thesis believes that it is just the translator’s adaptation-selection-flexibility in the choice of the translating strategies that is the demonstration of the translator’s subjectivity.Though the seriousness and rigor of the political literature determines that the target translation should take being closeness to the original text as an important task.However,this is more about the faithfulness of the content rather than the linguistic form.The translator must recognize the differences in language expressions between Chinese and Western languages,so he should be flexible enough both in the selection of translating strategies and the handling of the language expression,especially those with Chinese characteristics,all these is to help Western readers accurately understand the connotation of political literature.Of course,different translation theories have different interpretation of what is translator’s subjectivity,however,the translator’s subjectivity never means that the translator can manipulate the original text and target text without any restriction.Instead,he should have a strong sense of political responsibility for his own translation,and should have adequate political theoretical knowledge and skillful translating techniques to exactly interpret the essence of the source text.Only in this way can he be called a qualified political document translator.