论文总字数：23680字

摘 要

每年一度的《政府工作报告》是中华人民共和国政府的一种公文形式。报告会回顾并总结前一年的政府工作情况，汇报政府取得的成绩和基本经济指标完成情况，内容涉及政治、经济、文化、民生等方面。然后说明今年的经济社会发展总体要求和政策取向。最后会对未来一年的政府工作作出部署，《政府工作报告》的汉译英是对于国际社会了解中国的重要途径。因此，对于研究报告的英译版本是非常必要的。

本论文从德国功能主义目的论理论出发，分析研究2019年《政府工作报告》的翻译。论文首先介绍德国功能学派之目的论，其次分析《政府工作报告》的文体特点，从词汇、句法和修辞的角度，最后在目的论三原则的基础上对报告的文本翻译进行分析。

关键词：政府工作报告；目的论；文体特点

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Skopos Theory 1

2.2 Report on the Work of the Government 2

3. Linguistic Features of Report on the Work of the Government 3

3.1 Lexical features 3

3.2 Syntactic feature 4

3.3 Rhetoric features 4

4. Application of the Three Rules of Skopos Theory into the Translation of Report on the Work of the Government 5

4.1 Application of skopos rule 5

4.2 Application of coherence rule 7

4.3 Application of fidelity rule 8

5. Conclusion 8

Works Cited 10

1. Introduction

With the improvement of China"s comprehensive national strength and international status, the annul Report on the Work of the Government(abbreviated as RWG in the following thesis) issued by the Chinese government has become an important research document to understand China"s national conditions at home and abroad. Consequently, without doubt, the Chinese-English translation of RWG count for much. However, the translation of RWG is absolutely not an easy job to complete. RWG enjoys a high degree of authoritative political honor that requires its translators to be equipped with political awareness and sensitivity.

Skopos theory is a classical translation theory, which has gone through three stages of development and progressively radiated its effect. Translating the RWG into English will be helpful for the international community to know China’s policies and development situation. But on account of many words and phrases of the RWG with Chinese characteristics, it makes it more difficult to translate the RWG. Thus It is of great necessity and significance to combine Skopos theory with RWG in order to explore its translation strategies.

1. Literature Review

The Skopos Theory’s development includes three major characters’ contributions, that is, Katharina Reiss, Hans Vermeer and Christina Nord. The following part will analyze the three people’s views about the Skopos Theory, including its three rules.

• 1. Skopos Theory

Functionalist translation theory can be traced back to Katharina Reiss"s book The Possibilitilities and Limits of Translation Criticism published in 1971. In her book, Reiss developed a model of translation criticism which built on the concept of equivalence but viewed the text, rather than the word or sentence, thus Reiss puts forward the embryonic form of functional Criticism theory. In Reiss’s opinion, ideal translation should be equivalent to the original text in terms of conceptual content, linguistic form and communicative function, and such translation should be called comprehensive communicative translation. However, in practical translation, Reiss realized that not only it seemed beyond little possibilities to have made no distinction, but also it is sometimes undesirable. Reiss thinks that ‘ because the primary purpose in the translation is to achieve the same nonlinguistic effect in the target language’.(Reiss, 35).

Hans J. Vermeer is a student of Reiss. Skopos Theory is developed as the foundation for a general theory of translation able to embrace theories dealing with specific language and culture. Vermeer once mentioned that Any from of translation action, including therefore translation itself. Further: an action leads to a result, a new situation or event, and possibly to a new object’. (Vermeer,173)

Christiane Nord made a summarization of the theories of other functionalists in an all-round way. Her book explains the development and academic viewpoints of functional theories of translation in English, which contribute to the spread and influence of functionalist approach to translation in Germany. This model includes the analysis of extratextual and intratextual aspects of the communicative action and is designed to identify the function-relevant elements in both the existing source text and the prospective target text as defined by the translation units.( Zhao, 292)

2.2 Report on the Work of the Government

Obviously, the translation of RWG count for much to domestic and foreign people. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the term "publicity translation" came into being and was gradually accepted and widely used by the academic circles. In previous relevant papers, the term "publicity translation" did not appear. Instead, it was expressed in such expressions as Chinese-English translation, Chinese-English translation, Chinese-English translation of foreign affairs, Chinese-English translation of foreign affairs, foreign broadcasting and translation, and Chinese-English translation of commercial texts. In fact, this is due to people"s different understanding of the subject and scope of publicity translation, and the lack of consistency in understanding the relationship between "publicity to the outside world" and translation behavior. (Lu, 24)

Lu Min(48-51) discusses the way how to realize enough translation of political documents which are based on his own experience in translation practice When political documents are translated, Chinglish ought to be averted . Lu Min drew a conclusion that an outstanding political translator ought to have a clear political awareness and a sufficient background in foreign language knowledge.

Chen Zhenqiu(54-56) a very important translator in political documents translation, points out that the translation of political materials should be closer to the original text under the circumstances that there is not any addition and deletion to the source text optionally, for the political faithfulness in political materials has a close relationship with the government’s principles, policies, guidelines and programs.

1. Linguistic Features of Report on the Work of the Government

RWG clarifies the position of the Chinese government in a series of fields and issues, and provides the guiding principles and guidelines for its work, that is to say, it is a veritable authoritative issue. Its intention is to pass on every aspects of the Chinese government"s work, so that readers with different cultures can get to know its work and China"s national conditions. For one thing, it includes the review of the government"s work in the past five years, the current work and the deployment and outlook of the next year"s work. For another, it includes the summary and arrangement of the work in the fields of economy, politics, society, culture, science and technology, health, culture and so on.

A right comprehension is a precondition for good translation. Thus, It is essential to discuss the language features of RWG in detail.

• 1. Lexical features

Since RWG belongs to political document, it has all the characteristics of political writing. Thus, accurate and official words are supposed to be adopted in the RWG. Repetitions and abbreviations play an important role in it.

1. Repetition

“ Repetition is defined as to use one word, phrase or sentence repeatedly intentionally to emphasize the intention of the author and strengthen the tone and emotion to achieve better perlocution.”(Ma,59) It is very common to find the repetition in sentences, aiming to strengthen the writers’ feelings. For example, there are phrases,“勇于变革、勇于创新，永不僵化、永不停滞”in 2019 RWG.

1. Abbreviations

Many abbreviations appear in the report, which can be the noun, adjective or the verb, especially the noun. Most Chinese people have an understanding about the abbreviations and know the meaning of the phrases; however, it is difficult for foreign readers to understand them. The advantage of using the abbreviations is to improve efficiency and make people remember easily.“十三五规划，五位一体总体布局，四个全面战略布局”are all very significant expressions in 2019 RWG.

• 1. Syntactic feature

“ Syntactic means that the way that words and phrases are put together to form sentences in a language.”(Hornby,2119) In Chinese, no matter short sentence or long sentence, subjects are often omitted, while in English, a sentence with a subject is used more. For the long sentences, Chinese prefer to use less conjunctions; however, in English, conjunctions play an important role in sentences.

1. Non-subject sentences

“蹄疾步稳推进全面深化改革，坚决破除各方面机制体制弊端”。“着力增强改革系统性、整体性和协调性”。Even without subjects, Chinese people can understand the meanings clearly. However, it may make foreign readers confused, so what the translators should do is add the subject.

1. Long sentences

“确保所有行业税负只减不增，继续推进税率三档并两档，税制简化方向迈进。”There is no obvious conjunctions in this long sentence, but it can be known that the relationship between these short sentences is parallel. So when these sentences are translated, conjunctions ought to be used.

• 1. Rhetoric features

The content of the RWG is very formal. Sometimes rhetoric will be applied for passing on or stressing writer’s emotions more correctly. The 2019 RWG mainly uses parallelism. The RWG uses a lot of parallelism rhetoric, which makes sentences read rhythmically. The similar sentences also deepen the meanings that writers want to express. For example,“坚决反对一切否定党的领导和我国社会主义制度的言行；坚决反对一切损害人民利益、脱离群众的行为；坚决反对一切分裂祖国的行为”, in this sentence, “坚决反对”expresses the determination of the government’s work.

1. Application of the Three Rules of Skopos Theory into the Translation of Report on the Work of the Government

There are three basic rules for Skopos Theory: skopos rule, coherence rule and fidelity rule.

4.1 Application of skopos rule

Skopos rule have crucial effect in the selection of translation tactics and methods. Before translating, the translator must consider and pay attention to the purpose of RWG. For the sake of achieving available communication, the translator must think of the reader"s receptivity first. Receptivity contains two aspects: one is the receptivity of language itself, the other is the receptivity of cultural information. Successful translation must take both sides into consideration, so that foreign readers can get accurate information when the language and cultural background are quite different from foreign readers.

Example 1: 经济建设取得重大成就。

We have made major achievements in economic development.

Example 2: 更好利用国际国内两个市场两种资源。

We should make better use of both international and domestic markets and resources.

Example 3: 中国投资环境一定会越来越好，各国企业在华发展机遇一定会越来越多。

China’s investment environment is all set to get better and better, which means more and more business opportunities for foreign companies in China are a sure thing.

In this two examples,“取得”and “利用”are verbs, however, they are translated to “achievements”, “use”. Nouns and adjectives also can express report’s meaning. In some cases, using verbs in Chinese will make the English verbs seem strange, or not suitable for their own sentence structure, or if English also chooses to use the verb form, then the subject must be added. In the example 3, there are two same verb phrases“一定会”in the sentence. The former is translated into “ is all set to”, the latter is translated into “ are a sure thing”. They are both not verb phrases.

Example 3: 社会主义民主不断发展，党内民主更加广泛。

Steady progress has been made in enhancing socialist democracy; Inner-Party democracy has been expanded......

RWG has many sentences with long subjects and their verbs are short. If the translators translate these sentences word by word, readers from different countries will have difficulties in comprehending them. Therefore, when translating texts, translators should make corresponding changes according to different linguistic and cultural habits.

Example 4:“三公”经费再压减3%左右。

Spending on official overseas visits, official vehicles, and official hospitality should be cut by another 3 percent

“三公”usually refers to the three official consumption, including the overseas visits, the purchase and operation of official vehicles and the consumption of official entertainment. It is a term with Chinese characteristic. Due to the huge differences in language and cultural environment, foreign readers have great difficulty in understanding the abbreviation with Chinese characteristics. For words with Chinese characteristics, the translator are supposed to translate the implicit information contained in these words accurately.

Example 5: 加大“三区三州”等深度贫困地区脱贫攻坚力度。

We will intensify poverity alleviation in areas of extreme poverty like the “ three regions and three prefectures”

The “ three regions” refers to Tibet, four prefectures of southern Xinjiang-Hotan, Aksu, Kashi, and the Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture of Kizilsu, and the areas of Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, and Qinghai provinces with large Tibetan populations; the “ three prefectures” are Liangshan in Sichuan, Nujiang in Yunnan and Linxia in Gansu. The English version does not explain “三区三州”in detail, which may make foreign readers confused about the phrase, so the translators ought to explain it.

Example 6: 使军政军民团结始终坚如磐石

the unity between government and the military and between the people and the military is always strong as stones

The idiom,“坚如磐石”, shows that the Communist Party hopes that the relationship between the army and the government as well as between the army and the people can be as solid as a rock. In the English version, the idiom is translated into strong. The adaptation is acceptable because it lets the translation easier to comprehend.

4.2 Application of coherence rule

In language characteristics and organizational structure, there are great differences between Chinese language and English language.. For the sake of surmounting the difference and achieve the communicative purpose of the target text, the translator must make the translation consistent. If the English translation is similar to the original text, Chinglish will appear and the words and structures of the translated language will be strange, which will lead to the foreign readers can not understand the information conveyed by the source text well. Therefore, translators should make adjustments in practice.

Example 7: 成功举办……等重大主场外交活动。

We successfully hosted major diplomatic events such as......

Example 8: 激发市场主体活力，着力优化营商环境。

We will work to energize market entities and improve the business environment.

The two original texts can infer their tenses according to the situation, although the adverbs denoting time are not obvious. In English translation, the tense must be clearly expressed through verb deformations so that the reader can know when it happened. During translation, the translator needs to read the original concisely, choose the accurate tense on the basis of the original and translate it into target language concisely.

Example 9: 防范化解重大风险

We forestalled and defused major risks.

Subjectless sentences are very common in Chinese, because Chinese is a parataxis language. People in conversation can know who and what they are pointing to without saying the subject. But English translation is not the same, every part of a sentence are essential. There are two ways to deal with sentences without subjects: one is to add the subject, and the other is to turn it into a passive sentence.

Example 10: 下调城镇职工基本养老保险单位缴费比例，各地可降至16%。

We will lower the share borne by employers for urban workers’ basic aged-care insurance, and localities may cut contributions down to 16 percent.

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