Abstract

Since the reform and opening up, China has gained rapid growth in comprehensive national power. With the increasing international status, China’s success of drawing attention from all over the world. China government work report, as an official statement of work summary and plan published by the State Council, is of vital importance. To make the world know more about China, researchers and scholars related has done many study on the translation of it. This thesis is a study on translation of government work report from the perspective of Nida’s functional equivalence. The author tries to apply the theory in translation of government work report and summarize some practical translation strategies and skills through detailed analysis of the theory and 2016 government work report and enumerations of typical translated examples in the English version of the report.

Key words: translation, government work report, functional equivalence

CONTENTS

中文摘要

Abstract

1. Introduction-1

2. Government work report and its English version-2

2.1 A brief introduction to Chinese Government work report-2

2.2 Language characteristics of Government work report-2

2.2.1 Lexical characteristics-2

2.2.2 Syntactic characteristics-2

2.2.3 Rhetorical characteristics-2

2.3 Differences between Chinese and English under their cultural backgrounds-2

2.4 Translation principles-4

2.4.1 Apply interpretive translation-4

2.4.2 Assess every word and pay attention to cultural differences-5

2.4.3 Be concise and plain-5

3. Theoretical basis of the study-5

3.1 Nida's functional equivalence theory-5

3.2 Formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence-5

3.3 Criticisms and defects of functional equivalence-5

3.4 Differences between functional equivalence and German functionalism-6

3.4.1 Different definitions-6

3.4.2 Different status for original texts-6

3.4.3 Different status for translators-6

3.4.4 Different translation principles-6

3.4.5 Different evaluation standard-6

4. Functional equivalence applied in the translation of 2016 Chinese Government Work Report-6

4.1 Lexical translation-7

4.1.1 Translation of abbreviations-7

4.1.2 Translation of culture-loaded words-8

4.1.3 Translation of collocations-8

4.2 Syntactic translation-9

4.2.1 Translation of subjects-9

4.2.2 Translation of coordinate sentences-10

4.2.3 The active voice and the passive voice-10

5. conclusion-11

Works Cited-11