Today, China is playing an increasingly important role in the international arena, but western countries have many prejudices and misunderstandings about the rise of China. Therefore, it is an important task for China to enhance the awareness of external communication and strengthen the work to "let the world know about China and China". However, whether foreign communication can achieve its goal and be effective depends to a great extent on the translator's subjectivity and the choice of translation strategies. Mistranslation and mistranslation in foreign communication will not only damage China's image, but also deepen the western prejudice against China. Ding Hengqi summed up and analyzed more than a dozen common types of mistakes in the article "The quality of English publicity needs to be improved urgently". Through questionnaires and follow-up interviews with foreign readers whose mother tongue is English, Dou and Zhu Ping made an empirical study on the effectiveness of China's translation of political slogans, and found that ideological differences, social and cultural differences and language expression differences are the main reasons that affect foreign readers' understanding of China's political slogans. Li Dechao and Wang Kefei studied and analyzed two types of slogans: style-driven and non-style-driven, trying to build a more elaborate model of slogan translation strategies. On the basis of analyzing the language characteristics of slogans in international communication, this paper puts forward corresponding translation strategies from a micro perspective in view of the tasks and characteristics of international communication in the new period, with a view to improving the effect of international communication.
Second, the sentence characteristics of slogans
According to the definition of Modern Chinese Dictionary, advertising language is "a short sentence with programmatic and encouraging functions, which is used for shouting orally". The slogan is "a propaganda slogan with concise words and distinct meaning, and a slogan with propaganda and agitation function written in short words". Slogans have various forms, which can be phrases or sentences of different lengths. Such as "ruling the country according to law", "keeping pace with the times", "only living a good life", "persisting in scientific development, harmonious development and peaceful development", "carrying forward the main theme and advocating diversity" and so on.
Guiding ideology of slogans and translation of slogans
When discussing China's foreign propaganda work in the new era, Yang Xuefeng pointed out that the foreign propaganda work is to meet the needs of China's opening to the outside world, face overseas audiences and introduce China's mass communication activities to the world. Slogans have their own rules and characteristics in translation principles and methods because they have specific purposes and special audiences in foreign communication. A qualified translator should not only have bilingual knowledge, but also be familiar with the conversion between languages. He should always know China's principles and policies, grasp the degree of translation, establish the concept of "international communication", pay attention to the subjects that the audience cares about, and emphasize objectivity. Filter out slogans and slogans that are only suitable for domestic propaganda, or those that are not suitable for foreign countries. Translation of slogans and slogans that are not understood and accepted by foreign audiences will not only cause misunderstanding, but even damage China's international image, and should be filtered out. "Our current publicity (including the translation of external publicity) lacks internal and external awareness, and fails to take into account the thinking, psychological habits, information needs and language expression of foreign audiences, leading to the lack of recognition of the audience and the failure of publicity." Therefore, in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of foreign communication, the readability and acceptability of the translation become the key to the success or failure of slogan translation.
Slogans and Slogans Translation Strategies
In the new era, foreign communication has changed from propaganda in the past to the transmission of knowledge and information as its main function, with the aim of enhancing understanding and eliminating barriers and misunderstandings. Therefore, it is an audience-centered communication and should be implemented in the process of translation, and the result is reflected in the readability of the translation. According to Fang Mengzhi's translation dictionary, readability includes: grammaticality; Habitual; Clear meaning; Style adaptation; Organized.
1. Correctly interpret the original text, and resolve the obstacles for readers to understand.
Slogans and slogans are concise, rich in connotation, exquisite in word formation, flexible in sentence color and concise. Due to the high concentration of language, it can often produce fast and effective communication effects, but at the same time, because it is too general and vague, it is difficult for foreign readers to accurately understand its internal meaning only by literal translation. For example, if the slogan "Green Olympics, Hi-tech Olympics and People's Olympics" of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games is translated into "Green Olympics, Hi-tech Olympics and People's Olympics", foreign readers can still understand "green", but their understanding of "humanity" may be vague, and they may have doubts about "Hi-tech Olympics": Are people or science and technology participating in the Olympic Games? Therefore, translators must correctly understand the connotation of slogans in order to convey them correctly. "Green Olympics" refers to efforts to raise environmental awareness, attach great importance to protecting and improving the ecological environment, greatly improve the environmental quality of the capital, and build an ecological city; "High-tech Olympics" refers to promoting the industrialization of high-tech achievements and their wide application in the Olympic Games, making the Beijing Olympic Games a window to display high-tech achievements and innovative strength; "People-oriented Olympics" means "people-oriented", popularizing the Olympic spirit, carrying forward the excellent culture of the Chinese nation and deepening the understanding, trust and friendship between athletes and people of all countries. Therefore, the translation of "environmental Olympics, high-tech Olympics and cultural Olympics" can express the original intention more completely than simple literal translation. Therefore, it is one of the strategies to enhance the readability of the translation to accurately understand the internal meaning of slogans and make the general language concrete and clear.
2. Clarify the meaning of translation and promote effective communication.
The generality and abstraction of Chinese increase the difficulty of semantic understanding. Compared with Chinese, English words have specific meanings and are less dependent on context. For example, "the car is coming", and the "car" in this sentence can refer to any kind of transportation. If you want to translate it into English, it can't correspond to ordinary means of transportation. We must deal with it according to the specific situation: "Here comes the bus/car/taxi ...". Therefore, in translation, abstract and vague words should be transformed into concrete and clear words. If the same "national, scientific and popular socialist culture" is translated into "national, scientific and people's socialist culture", the impression given to foreign readers may be empty and vague. A competent translator is not a word-for-word translation, but a "tower bridge person" who communicates ideas. "National, scientific and popular" in the last sentence refers to the socialist culture with China characteristics, which advocates science and takes the people as the main body. Therefore, in the process of translation, "implicit information should be externalized or expressed according to the linguistic characteristics of the target language, rather than translated literally, so as to help the target readers better understand the national conditions of China and realize the real purpose of translation". On the basis of correctly understanding and clarifying the logic and connotation, the translation of "socialist culture with China characteristics, being pro-science and people-oriented" not only conforms to the English writing style, but also enables overseas readers to see its contents clearly, thus realizing effective communication function. Such examples abound in slogans and slogans. For example, in "strengthening the construction of rural grass-roots political power", the English corresponding to "grass-roots" includes grass-roots, grass-roots/primary, etc. However, in the specific context of "rural grass-roots political power", these words can not accurately convey the meaning of the original text. Because China's "grass-roots political power" often refers to the government at the township level, the corresponding translation is "strengthening the functions of township governments."
3. Increase cohesion and coherence to enhance the readability of the translation.
Chinese is a parataxis-oriented language, and the logical relationship is often implicit, while English is hypotaxis-oriented, paying attention to the completeness of sentence grammatical structure and the clarity of logic, and using conjunctions (including prepositions, relative words, non-predicate forms of verbs, etc.). ) to reflect the logical relationship between the parts of the sentence. Therefore, in the process of translation, it is necessary to analyze the internal logical relationship of Chinese sentences and express it clearly in the translation. For example, the translation of "progress in stability" is easy to understand by adding a simple conjunction while. Another feature of parataxis is theme-driven, so there are a large number of unowned sentences in Chinese; Hypotaxis is subject-driven, and subject is a necessary condition to form an English sentence. In translation, logical subjects can be added to make the translated sentences complete and further realize the transformation from parataxis to hypotaxis. For example, "We will continue to learn from foreign experience while maintaining China's characteristics"; The translation of "expanding domestic demand and ensuring growth" means "we should boost domestic demand and realize sustainable economic growth"
4. Take into account the original style and strive to be objective and reasonable.
China's political slogans and slogans have traditional expressions in Chinese, and also contain a large number of culture-loaded words, which have dual textual functions of "information" and "expression" (such as "insisting on scientific development, harmonious development and peaceful development"); Some commonly use rhetorical devices such as repetition, parallelism and antithesis to render the effect, which has the textual functions of "vivid" and "praying" (such as "doing a census hand in hand and building a beautiful China with heart to heart"); Some expressions are general and abstract (such as "laying a good foundation for reconstruction"); Others use a lot of strong or redundant embellishments (such as "promoting military diplomacy in an all-round, multi-level and large-scale way"). Because English advocates plain style, specific words and information, and considering that foreign communication should be accepted by overseas audiences, the content and expression must conform to the communication habits and acceptance psychology of overseas audiences, different types of texts should be treated differently in the process of Chinese-English conversion. The core of information-oriented slogans is the authenticity of information transmission, that is, focusing on objective information in translation and transformation, and paying attention to the true transmission of information and objective facts. Because the language form of this kind of text is subordinate to and secondary to the expressed content, the principles of semantic translation should be followed, such as:
Serve the people wholeheartedly, build the party for the public and govern for the people. "Adhere to the Party's Basic Theory, Basic Line, Basic Program and Basic Experience" is translated as "Adhere to the Party's Basic Line, Basic Program and Basic Experience" and the translation strategy of slogans in foreign communication.
Theory, route, procedure and experience. Adhere to scientific, harmonious and peaceful development.
For imperative sentences, what is important is the effect of information transmission and the emotional response of readers, that is, the reader effect. Therefore, while conveying information, we should pay attention to the correspondence and transformation of language forms in order to leave a more vivid impression on readers. For example, in the process of "promoting the main theme and promoting diversity", we must first convey a complete message, that is, what is the "main theme"? What does "diversity" mean? Secondly, the original text is concise and powerful, and the translation should be as close as possible to the stylistic form and style of the original text. Considering these two points, the translation of "promoting mainstream values and upward cultural diversity" is consistent with the original in form and content.
Five-point concluding remarks
To achieve the effect of external communication, we must first improve the quality of translation. International communication is a mass communication activity aimed at overseas audiences and introducing China to the world. Therefore, the translator must be reader-centered and reader-oriented. When choosing translation strategies, it is the key to improve the readability of the translation and realize effective communication. External communication often focuses on the subject matter that the audience cares about and emphasizes objectivity. When choosing translation materials, we should translate them instead of translating them, make differences between the inside and outside, strive to be objective and rational, and avoid the rejection of overseas readers. Of course, translators should always know China's principles and policies, current affairs and politics, so as to correctly understand and accurately convey them. At the same time, translators should also have a high degree of political sensitivity and avoid information distortion and misleading, so as to effectively achieve the purpose of external communication and influence the world more effectively.