Translation Strategies of Numerical Phrases in the Government Work Report

Jia Yang

doi:10.63313/LLCS.9140

Authors

Jia Yang School of Foreign Studies, Yangtze University, Jingzhou 434000, China Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.63313/LLCS.9140

Keywords:

Government work report, Numerical phrases, Translation strategy

Abstract

Numerical phrases usually refer to expressions where the common part is extracted when describing several similar things, with a number prefixed to the word. This form avoids redundancy caused by overly long texts, making expressions concise, powerful, and highly expressive. This study takes the original texts and official translations of numerical phrases in the 2019-2023 Government Work Report (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") as the corpus, and explores the translation strategies of numerical phrases through literature research and self-built corpus methods. Through the construction and retrieval of the self-built corpus, it is found that the translation of numerical phrases in the Report mainly includes five methods: literal translation, literal translation with paraphrasing, free translation, ignoring and not translating, and modifying translation. This study provides references for researchers and translation learners engaged in political text translation, and makes up for the shortcomings of existing studies to a certain extent.

References

[1] Bao, H. N. (2001). Fuzzy semantics of Chinese numerals and their translation. Journal of Liaoning Normal University, 24(4), 77-79.

[2] Zeng, G. X., & Long, F. (2016). A study on the English translation strategies of numeral phrases in the Report on the Work of the Government based on a parallel corpus. Journal of Harbin University, 37(1), 124-129.

[3] Chang, Y. (2002). A comparative study on the cultural connotations of numeral words in English and Chinese. Journal of Harbin University, 23(2), 77-79.

[4] Chen, J. (2017). A study on China English in the English translation of the Report on the Work of the Government. Overseas English, (8), 101-102.

[5] Chen, W. B. (2008). Translation skills: English-Chinese and Chinese-English bidirectional translation. Qunyan Press.

[6] Cheng, G. Y., & Zhang, J. (2021). A study on the translation methods of Chinese characteristic vocabulary: Taking the 2021 Report on the Work of the Government as an example. Chinese Character Culture, (1), 3-4.

[7] Cheng, Z. Q. (2003). Political considerations in the translation of political texts. Chinese Translators Journal, 24(3), 18-22.

[8] Fan, X. L. (2008). Fuzzy semantics of Chinese numerals and their translation. Private Science and Technology, (9), 85-85.

[9] Feng, Y. X. (2007). A study on the fuzziness of numeral semantics and its translation. Journal of Harbin Institute of Technology: Social Sciences Edition, 9(2), 135-138.

[10] Guo, X. W., & Shao, Y. N. (2014). Fuzziness of numeral semantics and its translation strategies. China Market, (13), 101-102.