摘要
本文从目的论的角度探讨习近平在金砖国家工商论坛上的演讲的英文翻译策略。本文结合了定量和定性分析的研究方法，通过大量例子主要探究演讲在词汇层面，句子层面以及语篇层面所采用的翻译策略。
本研究发现, 在词汇层面上, 译者在重复短语、四字结构和成语的翻译过程中运用了归化和异化策略来体现目的论的连贯性和忠实性原则。在句法层面上, 译者以异化为主, 在并列句、长句、诗的翻译过程中, 顺应了目的论连贯原则。在语篇层面上, 译者时态的处理过程中运用了规划策略来满足目的论的目的性原则。
本文为英语学习者提高政治演讲英译能力提供可操作的建议，提高对源语和目标语的了解, 熟悉二者的差异, 从而具有灵活处理各种中文结构的能力。其次, 本研究的结论可以为英文政治演讲的理解和鉴赏提供参考。
关键词：目的论 政治演讲 归化 异化
Abstract
This thesis discusses the English translation strategy of Xi Jinping's speech at the BRICS Business Forum from the perspective of skopos teleology. This thesis combines the research methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis. Through a large number of examples, it mainly explores the translation stra tegies?adopted?at?the?lexical?level,?the?sentence?level?and?the?discourse?level.
This study finds that at the vocabulary level, translators apply the strategies of domestication and foreignization in the translation of repeated phrases, four-character structures, and idioms to embody the coherence and fidelity principles of teleology. On the syntactic level, the translator focuses on alienation, and complies with the coherence principl e?of?teleology?in?the?process?of?translationof?parallel?sentences,?long?sentences, and poems. At the discourse level, the translator's tense process uses planning strategies to satisfy the purpose principle of teleology.
This thesis provides actionable suggestions for English learners to improve their English translation skills in political speeches, improve their understanding of source language and target language, and familiarize themselves with the differences between the two, so as to have the flexibility to handle various Chinese structures. Second, the conclusions of this study can provide references for the understanding and appreciation of English political speeches.
Key words: Skopos theory, Diplomatic speeches, Domestication, Foreignization
Contents
摘要 I
Abstract II
Contents III
Chapter One Introduction 1
1.1 Background of the Research 1
1.2 Objectives of the Research 2
Chapter Two Literature Review 3
2.1 Studies of Skopos Theory at Home and Abroad 3
2.1.1 Studies of Skopos Theory Abroad 3
2.1.2 Studies of Skopos Theory at Home 4
2.2 Studies of Political Speeches at Home and Abroad 6
2.2.1 Studies of Political Speeches Abroad 6
2.2.2 Studies of Political Speeches at Home 7
2.3 Space of the Research 8
Chapter Three Theoretical Framework and Research Design 8
3.1 The Three Rules of the Skopos Theory 8
3.1.1 The Skopos Rule 9
3.1.2 Coherence Rule 10
3.1.3 The Fidelity Rule 10
3.2 Research Questions 11
3.3 Research Methods 11
3.4 Data Collection 12
Chapter Four Translation strategies of Xi Jinping’s BRICS Business Forum Speech from the Perspective of the Skopos Theory 12
4.1 Translation Strategies at the Lexical Level 12
4.1.1 Repetition 13
4.1.2 The Four-Word Structure and the Idiom 14
4.2 Translation Strategies at the Syntactic Level 16
4.2.1 The Parallel Sentence 16
4.2.2 The Translation of Long Sentences 18
4.2.3 Poetry 21
4.3 Translation Strategies at Discourse Level 22
4.3.1 Tense 22
4.3.2 The Coherence of the Sentences 24
Chapter Five Conclusion 25
5.1 Main Findings 25
5.2 Implications 26
5.3 Limitation 27
5.4 Further Research Suggestions 27
References 28
Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background of the Research
The Chinese leaders' public speech is like a window, through which the outsides world can better understand China’s domestic and foreign policies. The speeches can reflect China's development strategy. They also provide new ideas and roadmaps for international political activities. At present, Chinese government attaches more importance to public diplomacy, and exchanges with other countries are becoming more frequent and active. China’s leaders express their opinions and the diplomatic ideas in various international situations. They want to strengthen foreign communications and corporations by delivering foreign public speeches. On behalf of the state, the national leaders would like to participate in international activities and construct the new international relations with a more positive attitude.
As one of the most acknowledged translation theorists in the contemporary era, Vermeer has made splendid contribution to the translation field in both Chinese and foreign translation studies. In 1978, Vermeer first put forward the “skopostheory” concept and further detailed it in “Groundwork for a General theory in translation” (1984). He defined the translation as a purposeful activity.
With the rising of China’s national strength and international status, the Chinese political speeches’ influence on the international become more and more important. Based on this background, the accurate translation becomes important as well. The accurate translation requests to convey the original meanings accurately from words to sentences. According to the skopostheory, the translator should stay loyal to the original content, however with the emerging of the new concepts with Chinese characteristics, the translation work become more and more difficult. The skopostheory highligh ts?the?purposeof?translation?and?emphasizes?the?function?of?the?target?text.?The?English version of the national leader’s speeches contributes to foreigner’s understanding of China’s views and opinions. So the translation of the national leader’s speeches under the guidance of the skopostheory is of great significance.?
Vermeer (1996) pointed out that the skopos theory should be seen as a general theory of translation for its “free-valued” in the sense that it does not carry any specific culture conditions which serve as exceptions. He regarded it as a general theory for its applicability to all situations:” a rule is general when no exceptions are known.” The application of the skopos theory to non-literary translation was never been questioned. This thesis analyzes the political speeches, which belongs to the non-literary text but question marks have been raised from those who have analyzed on the translation from the perspective of art. In such case, the generality skopos theory has been criticized by those who think it cannot be used for a special situation of a literary work of art. Those thought the skopos theory may not have a function in the manner that skopos theorist except. In literary theory, the functional purposes are not absolutely required in the texts. Which means not all literary work can be reduced to an aspect of action theory with an indented purpose or goal at which the translator aims. Vermeer responds that in these cases, translators still work with some kind of aims, even if it is difficult to pinpoint with precision. Thus to analyze the translation strategies of the political speeches are reasonable from the perspective of the skopos theory.
1.2 Objectives of the Research
In this thesis the author analyzes the official translation of the speech that the present Xi Jinping delivered at the opening ceremony of the BRICS business forum. The author analyzes the speech’s translation strategies from the perspectives of the Vermeer’s skopostheory. The analysis could provide suggestions for English learners' future English study or political speeches translation practice.
This thesis mainly consists of five parts. Part One gives a general introduction to the definition of skopostheory, research background, research purpose, and the structure of the thesis. Part Two is the literature review, an overview of studies on skopostheory and the political speeches translation both in China and abroad. Part Three introduces the theoretical framework of this thesis. The explanation of some major terms relevant to skopostheory, principles of skopostheory on translation, feasibility and norms of skopostheory in national leader’s speeches translation are included in this part. Part four shows the research design of this thesis, which includes research goal and questions, method and data collection. Part Five, the most important part, analyzes how to apply the three rules of the skopotheory, namely the skopos rule, the coherent rule, and the fidelity rule to the translation. Part Six makes a summary for the whole thesis.
Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Studies of Skopos Theory at Home and Abroad
2.1.1 Studies of Skopos Theory Abroad
In the 1980s, the Skopos theory was first introduced by Hans J. Vermeer. Skopos theory is the main theory of the German functionalist translational theory school. The center idea of the Skopos theory is the translator should pay? more?attention?on?the?target?readers?on?the?process?of?the?translation.?Inthe?1970s?the?skopos?theory?was?popular?in?German .?To?be?one?of?the?most?influential?theories?of?thefunctionlist?translation?theory,?the?skopos?theory?was formed after much practical and professional experience. The four famous person, ?Katharina?Reiss,?Hans?Vermeer,?Justa?Holz?Manttari?and?ChristianeNord,?who?have?made?contributions to skopos theory’s development. Katharina Reiss first put forward the original concept of the functionalist translation theory, who argued that the aim in the target language are equal to the content, form and communicative function of the source text can be the ideal translation. In her book, Ground for a General Theory of Translation co-authored with Vermeer in 1984, Reiss put forward her three corresponding text types, which are the informative text, the expressive text and the operative text. She holds the opinion that the specific translation methods adapting to text types. After almost thirty years, Reiss (2014) strive for integrating her text-typological approach as a ‘specific theory’ in which the equivalence of functions between the source and target texts plays the majority role. The second one is Hans Vermeer, Reiss’ student, who exceeded the limit of the equivalence theory completely and further developed the skopos theory. In 1984, the skopos theory first appeared at the book of “Groundwork for a General Theory of Translation”, in which he pointed out that translation is a purposeful specific human activity, not a translation process from the original language to target language. The third figure is Manttari who further developed Vermeer's teleological theory and put forward the theory of translation action. Manttari greatest contribution to translation is to distinguish between translation and translation action. She thinks that the purpose of tran slation?action?is?to?transfer?information?across?language?and?cultural?barrier, the translation is nothing but a text about cross-cultural transformation behavior and specific implementation. The fourth figure is who systematically synthesize the viewpoints of German functionalist translation theory and puts forward the principle of function and loyalty as a supplement to the skopos theory. Nord (1997) also put forward the “functionalist plus loyalty” as the directed principles for some theory with the incline of extreme.?
Reiss (1977) pointed out that the choices of proper translation strategies and technique depend on text type. Reiss thinks that the translator should understand the text type of the source text first when dealing with the translation of a text. The primary function of information texts is the transmission of information. The content of the text focuses on communication and must be retained at any cost. Manttari (1984) put forward the “translation action” which provided a theoretical foundation to translation professional. Manttari thought the translation is “a form of mediated intercultural communication”. Munday (2001) pointed out that translation serves its purpose of communication. The source text is viewed only to presented information and analyzed the solely for its construction and function profile. Translators may use more than one of strategies to meet the goal of the original texts. Different types of texts have different goals while delivering the information. So it is important for translators to figure out why the translation need be translated, and what is the intention of the translation.?
2.1.2 Studies of Skopos Theory at Home
In China, the skopos theory was introduced in the 1980s. With the introduction of functionalist translation theory to China, the development of Chinese translation theory began to flourish.
The earliest article about the theory is The Three Translators about in German. In 1987, Gui first introduced the Vermeer’s new observation about translation. However, this article was focused on the translators, not the translation theory, which didn’t attract the Chinese translators’ attention. Sun pointed out that the skopos theory shows the strong single subjectivity principle and pragmatism and utilitarianism tendency. Theory of communicative action holds purposeful rationality is only one aspect of communicative action, while translation skopos theory focuses on the translator’s subjectivity, and at the same time turns the inner-subjective communicative action into purposeful activity between subject and object. From the? perspective?of?the?theory?of?communicative?action?translationtheory?of?the?teleology?has?its own rationality and inevitable limitation. Ch en?pointed?out?that?thepurposes?and?strategies?of?translation?and?the?fidelity?are?the inevitable questions of German functionalist translation theory, which can have a better future after dealing with those problems. In 2006, Bian discussed the relevant problems about the skopos theory with Nord, such as what was the social and academic background of the emergence of skopos theory in Germany? What is the relationship between action theory, acceptive aesthetics theory, text linguistics theory, and communicative and skopos theory? Nord pointed out that the direct background of skopos theory is the theory of action. “What should we Chinese do to study and apply skopos theory to practice, especially in regard to translation criticism and translators training? Nord answered that “Chinese scholars should read the basic text about the skopos theory (as far as they are available in English) carefully, trying to see the whole range of possible “functional” ways of translation apart from adaptive forms.” This discussion about Bian and Nord aims to clarify Chinese translation circle’s misunderstandings and opinions about the skopos theory. (p. 43)
The skopos theory focused on the skopos function to the translation strategies. Therefore, many scholars in China thought this theory is suitable to the non-literary translation which emphasizes the translation’s skopos. The scholars studied the translation methods from various aspects, such as translation skopos, skopos rule, coherence rule, loyalty principle and the functionally-oriented top-down methodology, to discuss that how to the functionalist skopos theory direct the translation strategy problems on various texts ( Zhang, 2004;Wu, 2005; Shen, 2005.). These scholars analyzed a large number of examples and summed up some effective and important translation strategies that can be based on the fidelity of the original text, such as addition, deletion, literal translation, interpretation, and adaptation strategies to achieve the communicative function of translation. Xu (2017) pointed out that Vermeer’ s skopos theory does not focus on the equivalence of the original text and the target text, but focuses on the best way ?to?choose?the?intended?function?of?the?target?text?in?the?translationprocess.?
Diao?(2017)?analyzed the categories in the political speeches. Guided by the three principle rules of teleological theory, she explored the translation strategies of translation political speeches, namely, maintaining analogical bodies, transforming analogical bodies, excluding the subject of analogy, and increasing the subject of analogy.
2.2 Studies of Political Speeches at Home and Abroad
2.2.1 Studies of Political Speeches Abroad
Bochmann (1986) defined the political texts as a part of politics, and though it was determined by the history and culture. “In social life, speech is a way to address your point and to have an effect on problems that are important.” (Lucas, 2004:28). He pointed out that political speech is the public speaker delivers a speech in front of a larger group of the audience about the national suggestion with the help of facial expression, body language and the strong emotion to inspire or teach the audience something.?
According to the definition, we could easily infer the main futures of the political speech. Political speech is always overwhelmingly logical, language must be precise and eloquent, and political views must be very firm and clear. The initial aim of a political speech is to persuade the audience to take action by means of inspiring them and informing them, which the speaker expect them to do to fulfill their pursuits.
Grice (1975) pointed out that the political speeches have three purposes, first is to convince people to take the action which is wished by the speakers; second is to change the beliefs and attitudes of the audience; third is to weaken their current beliefs and attitudes. Atkinson (1984) believed that the politicians represent a wide range of opinions and beliefs, but one thing they all have in common is a quite extraordinary ability to captivate their audiences, inspired crowds and mobilize mass opinions.
Carreon (2017) analyzed the Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha’s political speech from the concept of Political Discourse Analysis found that the keywords relating to information conveyed by the spokesman used frequently.?
2.2.2 Studies of Political Speeches at Home?
Although in as early as 1997, Xu had made an attempt to analyze the Chinese translation of English speeches, over the following ten years or so, few other domestic scholars make any efforts studying E-C translation of political speeches. In recent, people study more on political speeches from different perspectives, such as study on the intertextuality perspective of political speeches, on the modality perspective, the appraisal perspective and the pragmatic guidelines for ideological analysis perspective to analyze the political speech. Wei (2005) analyzed the language structure,rhetoric features of speeches and sufficient translation examples, aims to summarize the most significant features of political speech and further explore the process,guiding principles and difficulties in its translation. Wang and Cheng (2007) analyzed the differences between political speeches and academic speeches from the perspective of form, and found that most of the two forms of speech express the possibility of vocabulary, and most of the formal vocabularies expressing the possibility in political speeches are high-valued or medium-valued. He (2010) also studied the modality in political speeches. She founded that the high-valued modal adverb not only indicated the speaker’s confidence but also can achieve the purpose of influencing the audiences. He pointed out that during the political speeches, the Chinese text used a more high-valued modal adverb to express the tendency of the speaker, which make the speech has high persuasive power. Liu (2010) made a general analyze on the culture strategies and pointed out that only the speech theme have comprehensive knowledge about the role of the audience, and use the strategies of the culture context extremely, can they achieve the effectiveness of the persuasion, notification and inspiration. In 2016, Zhang analyzed the intertextuality and the strategies of the political speech revealed the relation between intertextuality and political texts and found the current political texts are characterized by “peace and development” as the general theme.
2.3 Space of the Research
The former studies about the skopos theory not only provided a theoretical direction for later study, but also pointed out that the different strategies adapting to different texts. Although many researches, experts and researches combined the Skopos theory with many kinds of
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