A Study on the English Version of Xi Jinping's Governance of China from the Perspective of Skopos Theory

By

Wu Yan

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of Bachelor of Arts

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

June, 2017

Acknowledgements

It is not until through unrelenting endeavors of more than three months that I eventually put my finishing touch to the thesis. While a wealth of impediments held back the writing process, I managed somehow to pull through with the keen support both of my bosom friends and teachers. Special acknowledgments must go to my supervisor Yang Lincong whose cordial guidance and rectifications as well as instrumental suggestions went a long way in the course of my writing. But for her ardent backing, this thesis wouldn’t have been made even remotely possible. Beyond that, I am also obliged to the teachers and Mr. Zhou Zhihao, my head teacher, who has always been impassioned in instructing me and Mr. Liu Jiehai, my advanced English teacher who proves to be competent and ready to help.

I would like to dedicate this paper to the aforementioned earnest proponents, and yet words seem to fail me when I try to extend my heartfelt gratefulness to them all again.

Contents

1. Introduction 7

2. A research of the translation of Xi Jinping’s Governance of China. 9

2.1 Skopos theory 9

2.2 Application of the Skopos theory in evaluating the translation of Xi Jinping's Governance of China 12

3. An evaluation of translation on the English version of Xi Jinping's Governance of China

3.1 Political vocabulary with Chinese characteristics 13

3.2 Idioms and proverbs 16

3.3 Abbreviations with Chinese characteristics 18

4. Conclusion 19

References 21

A Study on the English Version of Xi Jinping's Governance of China from the Perspective of Skopos Theory

Wu Yan

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

Abstract: with China's role and status increasingly prominent on the international arena, it is thus particularly significant and imperative to propagate China's political philosophy to the whole wide world. Against this backdrop, China's Foreign Languages Press published multilingual versions of Jinping's Governance of China in English, drawing a wide range of attention in the field of politics from both home and abroad. Through analyzing the English version of Jinping's Governance of China, the present author carries out a study on the book from the three aspects which are political terms with Chinese characteristics, idioms and proverbs and abbreviations with Chinese characteristics with the focus on the lexical section. What is more, the author also incorporates the main theory of the functionalist translation theory, namely Skopos theory, to evaluate the upsides and downsides of the English version in two dimensions. Through the summary of translation methods of such a textual type, the author is to generalize the translation strategies of the whole textual type at large. While summing up similar expressions and delving into the translation methods in the process of composition, the author found that there still exist some particular examples that cannot be translated by existing translation modes for some sentences. For this reason, the author made continued endeavors to dig out common approaches applicable to such sentences, so as to explore more appropriate and improved ways of translation, thus serving as a reference for the translation of Chinese political texts and providing some instrumental guidance for the translation in similar domains.

Key words: Xi Jinping's Governance of China; Skopos theory; English-Chinese translation

摘要：随着中国在国际舞台上发挥着日益突出和重要的地位，把其政治理念推向世界就显尤为重要和迫切。在此背录下，中国外文出版社发行了《习近平谈治国理政》英文版本，引起了国内外政治领域的广泛关注。笔者通过对《习近平谈治国理政》书的英译本翻译分析，主要从词汇领域研究该书的中国特色词汇、成语俗语以及中国特色缩略语，并结合功能派翻译理论框架下的主要理论一一目的论评价英译本在两个维度上的优劣。通过汇总每个小类的翻译方法，归纳出这一大类的翻译策略，笔者在对相似表达进行整理归纳并探索翻译方法的过程中，发现每种类别下依然存在不能套用固定模式的特例，以期来的研究者可以进一步寻找这些特例的共同点找到更加完善的处理方式，从而给政治文本的翻译提供参考，为今后类似域的翻译提供一些有用的指导。

关键词：《习近平谈治国理政》；目的论； 汉英翻译

1. Introduction

The translation of Chinese political texts play a crucial role in the process of making the spirits of China universal; only when we precisely convey the core connotations of the spirit of the Party and national leaders, can we expect to disseminate the aspirations of Chinese people featuring peace-loving in a positive light, in a bid to quell the threats and misgivings mistakenly sensed by western countries due to the rise of China. According to the assiduous study on domestic background, the author chooses the English version of Jinping's Governance of China as an example to conduct a study on its translation. The national ideology of China are quite different from the that of the vast majority of the western countries, in addition, the national image of China has also left an indecent impression on many western people by virtue of some falsified reports, and hence it is urgent for us to make more villagers of the earth's village to have a correct idea and a better understanding of China and update their points of view toward China The book Jinping's Governance of China consists of the General Secretary's discourse, speech, instructions, congratulatory letters and among others, acting as a proper starting point for the readers from all countries to have a sound understanding the Chinese social systems and historical cultures. By reading this book, readers of all countries will be able to understand the major theoretical and practical issues facing the development of the Party and the country in a new era, as well as the philosophy of governance of the country and ruling strategies exercised by the central leading collective.

In such a context, to explore how to better promote the political philosophy of China to all over the world and enable more countries and regions around the world to have a more in-depth understanding of China has become a quite pressing topic. As a result, if we were to propagate the Chinese philosophy characterized by peace and mutual benefits to the world, it would be exceedingly pivotal to truly and accurately China's political views to the whole world by means of appropriate translation.

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