On Communicative Translation of Chinese Political Discourse

摘要

The paper explores the communicative translation principles of Chinese political discourse, which serves as one of the important platforms for China's global communication. It argues that the traditional source-text-oriented view of translation may hinder the audience's sound understanding of the complex and ideological connotations, therefore major concerns should also be given to the readers' understanding and acceptability in the process of translating Chinese political discourse which features ideology-influenced translation practice, culture-loaded abbreviations and metaphors. The paper also proposes three communicative translation principles, namely, downplaying of ideological influence, paraphrase of abbreviated terms and coordinated literal translation and explanation for mapping metaphors, to fulfill the purpose of cross-cultural communication and projecting a favorable image of China to the world.