Abstract

With the development of China’s economy, politics, culture and so on, large quantities of Chinese new phrases appear and become more and more popular among Chinese people. These words also reflect various changes of the times. Reports on the Work of the Government usually cover such kind of expressions since they are official documents published by the government once a year and have become one of the efficient ways that the foreign people know China. And generally, people cannot find completely corresponding English versions to express the meanings of these phrases. Therefore, in order to let the outside world understand China better, it is vital and also necessary to study the translation of this kind of expressions in Reports. 

The paper will make studies on the Chinese and English versions of Government Work Report in 2014 and 2015, mainly on the translation methods of Chinese new phrases and try to find out the general rule to help China’s foreign propaganda work. First of all, the paper will collect the data of the representative Chinese new phrases in Reports of the two years (2014 and 2015). And then these terms will be divided into three categories according to the linguistic features: numeral abbreviations, four-character structures and words of miscellany. What’s more, it will make a statistical analysis on the English translation methods used in each kind of Chinese new phrases. The results suggest that translators often use free translation to render numeral abbreviations as well as four-character structures and literal translation is mainly adopted in words of miscellany.

Key Words: Reports on the Work of the Government; Chinese new phrases; translation methods

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

2. Literature Review-2

2.1 A General Introduction to Chinese New Phrases in Reports on the Work of the Government-2

2.2 Previous Studies on Reports on the Work of the Government-4

3. Research Methodology-5

3.1 Research Design-5

3.2 Data Collection and Data Analysis-5

4. Results and Discussion-8

4.1 The Translation Methods of Numeral Abbreviations-8

4.1.1 Literal Translation-9

4.1.2 Free Translation-10

4.1.3 Combination of Literal and Free Translation-10

4.1.4 Summary-11

4.2 The Translation Methods of Four-Character Structures-11

4.2.1 Literal Translation-12

4.2.2 Free Translation-13

4.2.3 Combination of Literal and Free Translation-14

4.2.4 Summary-14

4.3 The Translation Methods of Words of Miscellany-15

4.3.1 Annotated Transliteration-16

4.3.2 Literal Translation-16

4.3.3 Literal Translation with Notes-18

4.3.4 Free Translation-18

4.3.5 Combination of Literal and Free Translation-20

4.3.6 Summary-20

5. Conclusion-21

References-23

Appendix-24