摘 要

翻译是国际沟通的桥梁，也是外交的重要组成部分，不仅展现着一个国家的地域与民族文化特色，也影响着其在国际社会上的形象与声誉。近年来，随着综合国力与国际地位的不断提高，中国在世界舞台上扮演着至关重要的角色，并希望进一步得到国际社会的认可与尊重，由此对外宣翻译提出了更高的要求。在“一带一路”倡议的背景下，本文将通过图书、期刊、报纸、广播、电视、互联网等各种媒体以及国际会议上发表和传播的中国观点英译版，探讨我国外宣翻译的特点与翻译策略。外宣翻译本质上依然是翻译，其根本目的是出于交际需求。因此，外宣翻译首要关键是注意中外话语融通，没有话语融通，沟通与传播就无法达到预期效果，甚至造成误解。其次应当注意保持中国特色，这则是中国独特的文化传统使然。

关键词：外宣翻译；一带一路；话语融通；中国特色

Abstract

Translation, the window for international communication, is a pivotal part of diplomacy. It showcases the regional and national cultural characteristics of a country, and influences the country’s image and reputation in international community. With the enhancement of national strength and international status in recent years, now China is playing a crucial role on the international stage and is willing to gain recognition and respect from the international community, which proposes higher demand for international publicity translation. Inspired by the Belt and Road Initiative, this paper aims to study the characteristics and strategies of international publicity translation through the English version of China’s views released in mass media such as book, journal, newspaper, broadcast, television, internet and international conference. Radically international publicity translation still belongs to translation, and its fundamental purpose is to meet social demand. Therefore, the key of international publicity translation is to focus on discourse integration because communication cannot achieve the desired results and even cause misunderstandings without discourse integration. Then keeping Chinese characteristics in international publicity translation needs emphasized on account of China’s distinctive cultural tradition.

Key Words: International Publicity Translation; the Belt and Road; Discourse Integration; Chinese Characteristics

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 The Characteristics and Challenges of International publicity translation 3

2.1 Two Main Characteristics 3

2.1.1Communication effects 3

2.1.2 Different audiences 4

2.2 Main Challenges 4

2.2.1 Misunderstanding of original sentence 5

2.2.2 The untranslatables from Chinese into English 7

2.2.3 Lacking of keen political sense 8

3 International Publicity Translation under Bamp;R Initiative 11

3.1 Significance of The Belt and Road Initiative 11

3.2 Research results of international publicity translation 12

4 International Publicity Translation Strategies 14

4.1 Keeping Discourse Integration 14

4.1.1 Seeking the similar expressions 14

4.1.2 Supplementation of background knowledge through the annotations 15

4.2 Maintaining Chinese Characteristics 17

4.2.1 Understanding the meaning of origins and eliminate ambiguity 17

4.2.2 Keeping a clearly political mind 18

5 Conclusion 20

References 22

Acknowledgements 24

A Study of International Publicity Translation from the Perspective of the Belt and Road Initiative

1 Introduction

As the decisive factor for international publicity effect, international publicity translation showcases the regional and national cultural characteristics of a country, influences the country’s image and reputation in international community, and becomes a pivotal part to maintain external stability and security. （张健，2014）There is no doubt that we must take our eyes on international publicity translation so as to create a neighborly and strong country image and hold bigger say in international policy.

Contrast to its vital significance, however, international publicity translation still is a relatively emerging field with barely 30-year history in China. In the 1990s, Mr.Duan Liancheng wrote an article in Chinese Translation, Appeal: Requesting the translators to pay attention to external propaganda, evoking the attention and interest of scholars and translators in external translation.（宋平锋，孙吉娟，2018） Whereas at the time, international publicity translation usually appeared in the name of “Chinese-English translation”, “Translation for foreign affairs”, “External communication and translation” and so on. Until the new century, the name of international publicity translation is first seen in Lixin’s article in 2001, thought without specific definition and demonstration.

After the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative, some western media such as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times in the US, Financial Times in the UK, The Straits Times in Singapore claim the Belt and Road Initiative as “Chinese Marshall Plan”, “Imperialism with Chinese characteristics”, “Chinese Globalization”, “Money Competition”, “Trojan Horse” and so on. These titanic misapprehensions toward The Belt and Road Initiative and Chinese culture incur false speculation to China’s purpose, and impede in a way the shared benefits of China and those countries along the ancient Silk Road, even affect the unstoppable globalization. For a long time, Chinese government has launched many a policies to promote Chinese culture to be diffused and understood such as CBI Project (Chinese Book International) in 2004, Chinese Cultural Works Translation and Publishing Project in 2009, Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences in 2010, and established Chinese culture website in 2015, The Splendid Chinese Culture.（骆萍，2019） In 2016, Guidance on Further Strengthening and Improving the Work of Chinese Culture Going Outside，proposed by President Xi Jinping, emphasized afresh to introduce unique excellent Chinese culture, which is able to reveal Chinese spirit, characteristic and wisdom, to all the world.

For decades, countless and splendid results have been created by scores of scholars, who devote themselves into this area. Among them, the more famous are Huang Youyi, whose work Adhere to Three Principles of International Publicity Translation boasts the highest paper citation rate in translation circle; Zhang Jian, whose work Introduction to Translation in China’s Global Communication becomes the basic book for all Chinese translators; Huang Ming, Di Xiping, the authors of Cultural Untranslatability and Transformation in Publicity Translation, analyze untranslatability and cultural conversion from the slogan of Fortune Global Forum in Chengdu. In a nutshell, hosts of researchers endeavor to create new concept and new meaning about international publicity translation with multifarious theories under the changing international situation so as to help China be better understood and improve China’s cultural soft power.

Radically, international publicity translation is a branch of translation, and its fundamental purpose is to meet social demand. Therefore, the key of international publicity translation is primarily to focus on discourse integration because communication cannot achieve the desired results and may cause misunderstandings without discourse integration. Then to create a neighborly and strong country image and hold bigger say in international policy, keeping Chinese characteristics and political discourse in international publicity translation（曾剑平，2018）needs to be paid attention to on account of the distinctive cultural and social system in China.

Based on that, this paper aims to study the main challenges in international publicity translation and explore how to preserve not only characteristics of Chinese culture and political discourse, but also enable foreign reader to comprehend and accept them in order to achieve the effect of external publicity.（李荣荣，邵华，2019） Finally, this paper will try to seek suitable international publicity translation strategies for enhancement of China’s international image as a neighborly and strong country.

2 The Characteristics and Challenges of International Publicity Translation