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The Introduction of Translation Approaches
In accordance with what has been argued, this paper will set forth several translation approaches later. As far as these approaches are concerned, different translators may adopt different methods, and there are so many ways to translate Chinese publicity materials. Here the writer just expound upon some methods which are the most important and used frequently.
The aims of translating Chinese publicity materials are to let more and more foreign people know about China, to convey information and to stimulate international communication as well. Thus, all the approaches proposed in this paper, different from the ordinary ones, are just for these purposes. This part focuses on different aspects of publicity materials translation. The approaches that we commonly take are to add some information if necessary and delete information which are not needed, the reliance on word formation patterns, explanation and translation on the basis of deep understanding of the original, or translation and edition.
The Use of Word Formation
First of all, we inquire into the translation of some new words which have come into being in recent years, and new words with new translations. Under these situations, sometimes, we will take the use of word formation into account, or resort to another new ways to translate them. For instance, we prefer to say “the anti-humanity, anti-society, anti-science nature of the cult” when we translate the sentence “fan ren lei, fan she hui, fan ke xue de xie jiao ben zhi”, rather than“the nature of the cult is to against humanity, against society and against science.” The main point or what the author really wants to emphasize is lost in the second version although there is no mistake in grammar. There are some other instances, “tong yi de duo min zu guo jia” we prefer translating them as “unified multi-ethnic group” to “unified country with many different nations”. When we see “shi yong fang bian” in an advertisement, we usually say “it is very convenient to use”. But in the version of publicity material, we’d better say “user-friendly” to make foreigners feel new and accept easily. When it refers to some other new words appeared in tourism, we may use compounding to translate them. Examples as: “ke ji lv you”, we use “science-theme tourism” instead of “scientific and technological tourism”.
Meanwhile, we can adopt blending to translate some newly appeared words. We can see the author use “ecotourism” to annotate“sheng tai lv you”, and it is good for using “ecological tourism”. And the word “infotainment”(information entertainment) is used to translate“yu le xing jie mu xin wen” in publicity materials.
In addition, we have been accustomed to using “construction” to translate “jian she” in the before. Take “yi jing ji jian she wei zhong xin” as an example, the translation used to be “to take on economic construction as the central task”. But now, we are inclined to use “reconstruction” instead of “construction” according to the need. Such as “jian chi yi jin ji jian she wei zhong xin”(We will continue to focus on economic reconstruction). And sometimes, “jian she”is not translated under any other circumstances. The example is “da li jia qiang jin shen wen ming he she hui ming zhu jian she”(We should make great efforts to improve socialist spiritual civilization, democracy and legal system). Let us look at another example “lian zhengj ian she”. This phrase has been translated as “construct clean politics” before, which is not appropriate just now. “Politics” is always used as a derogatory term, as “office politics” refers to the competition and struggle in the office. So it is translated as “build a clean and honest government” in the publicity material now.
