摘 要
本文选取近几届国务院《政府工作报告》为语料进行研究，以政府工作报告的语言文体特征及其翻译的特点为切入口，从政府工作报告英译中常见的难点着手分析，并通过对译例进行具体分析，试图总结和归纳政府工作报告英译的策略。鉴于政府工作报告是观点鲜明、郑重严肃、权威可靠的文体，其翻译应凸显准确性、客观性、完整性等特点。同时，又由于其翻译特点，政府工作报告英译过程中亦易出现以下的难点，即“中式英语”倾向、词汇非等值、政治术语及新词的用词准确性以及信息障碍等。本文针对政府工作报告英译中易出现的这些难点提出了相应的翻译策略，并结合例子进行分析。
关键词：政府工作报告；翻译；难点；策略
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ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on Chinese Government Work Report of Premier Wen Jiabao delivered at the Chinese National People’s Congress, which is closely related to the current situation of China and has a lot to do with Chinese culture, history, and people’s way of thinking. Starting with a brief introduction of government work report and its translation, the thesis analyzes stylistic features of the report and characteristics of its translation and then concludes major difficulties in current government work report translation practice. The general difficulties can be categorized into four types: Chinglish, lexical non-equivalence, inaccuracy of translating political terminologies or neologism, and information impediment. Based on the above analysis, the author attempts to explore proper translation techniques in the process of translating government work report, such as substitution, subordination, deletion and explanation.
Keywords：government work report; translation; difficulties; techniques
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Contents
1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 4 2. Overview of government work report and its translation ........................................... 5 2.1 Stylistic features of government work report ................................................................... 5 2.2 Characteristics of translating government work report .................................................... 5 3. Major difficulties in current government work report translation practice .............. 7 3.1 Chinglish .......................................................................................................................... 7 3.2 Lexical non-equivalence .................................................................................................. 8 3.3 Inaccuracy of translating political terminologies or neologism ....................................... 8 3.4 Information impediment .................................................................................................. 9 4. Strategies for translating government work report .................................................... 10 4.1 Substitution .................................................................................................................... 10 4.2 Subordination ................................................................................................................. 11 4.3 Deletion .......................................................................................................................... 13 4.4 Explanation .................................................................................................................... 14 5. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 16 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ 17 References ........................................................................................................................... 18
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1．Introduction
Government work report, national or local, is the representative document of the government concerned. It reviews the achievements of the past year or past five years as well as shortcomings, and sets forth the plans and policies in all walks of life, touching upon various specialties of life, from agricultural development, environmental protection to medical care, news, publishing and so forth for the upcoming years. With the improvement of its comprehensive national strength and its international status, China is now increasingly remarkable in the international arena. Meanwhile, there is a growing keen desire from the outside world to learn more about China. As a mouthpiece of the Chinese government, government work report has always been attracting the most worldwide attention, and it certainly presents a most authoritative and important source of information about the situation of China and the policies of its government. The translation of government work report enjoys high political significance and plays an important role in building up our national image in international communication. Therefore, it is the translator’s great task to faithfully convey government work report to the target readers in refined English version. Studies in this field are mostly carried out by domestic researchers, who know the background information well, while foreign studies are rarely available. As a result, references quoted are mostly from domestic researches.
This thesis will focus on Chinese government work report. All the examples here are excerpts from Government Work Report of Premier Wen Jiabao delivered at the Chinese National People’s Congress. The English versions are produced by Central Compilation
and
Translation
Bureau
and
collected
from
http://english.gov.cn/official/workreports.htm. Based on these data, the author attempts to sum up the difficulties in the translation of the report and come up with some solutions in this field.
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2. Overview of government work report and its translation
2.1 Stylistic features of government work report
Government work report is, in a sense, both a speech and a formal report [1]7. Read to deputies at the People’s Congress by the Prime Minister or the head of a local government, government work report demands a formal language style that contributes to its solemnity and authoritativeness required by such formal occasions. Unlike the language of everyday speeches, its language generally free of colloquialism and slang, assumes a far more formal quality, which is evidenced in frequent use of formal words, political jargons and long, complicated but logic sentences [2]5. Therefore, such a style should have clear and precise diction, and ambiguity is by all means forbidden [1]8.
Orally and directly delivered to deputies, government work report is at the same time a written report to be published for public reading. To ensure easy and unmistakable understanding of the messages on the part of its audience, who come from all walks of life and receive varying levels of education, it prefers plain language
[2]6
. Meanwhile, plain language is also employed to fulfil the function of the report.
Aiming to acquaint people of government performance rather than aspire for aesthetic senses, government work report economizes on flowery words and rhetoric devices that are designed for aesthetic effect [2]6.
2.2 Characteristics of translating government work report
From the above stylistic features, the underlying principles of translating government work report are made clear. They have their own characteristics and distinguish the translation practice of government work report from that of the other kinds of external publicity materials [3]64.
Among all the characteristics, accuracy enjoys the top priority. As an authoritative official statement made at the people’s congress, government work report, either national or local, is extremely formal. It is weighed over deliberately and must be revised for many times. Each word expression and sentence has the exact
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