A Linguistic and Stylistic Analysis of the Chinese Translation of Obama's Speech at the First Meeting of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue between the United States and China——Through the Lens of Reiss' s Text Type Theory

According to Reiss’s Text Type theory,a key part of the functionalist approach in translation studies,the source text can be assigned to a text type and to a genre.In making this assignment,the translator can decide on the hierarchy of postulates which has to be observed during target-text production(Mona,2005).This essay intends to conduct a linguistic and stylistic analysis of the Chinese translation of Obama’s speech to explore the general approach of the translator(if there is one),by comparing the respective results of the two analyses from the perspective of Katharina Reiss’s Text Type theory.In doing so,critical judgments will accordingly be made as to whether such an approach is justifiable or not.

The Inheritance and Innovation of Translation Theory——The Perspective on Original Works

For more than a thousand years since the formation of translation as a discipline,many translation theories and different translation schools have emerged.The exploration of translation theories has lasted for hundreds and thousands of years.Each translation school has proposed different translation theories.Throughout the development of translation theory,discussions have always centered on the relationship between the source text and the target text,encompassing translation strategies such as foreignization and domestication,as well as methods like literal translation and free translation.This relationship has been the main thread running through the history of translation theory development.In the 1970s,Reiss,a representative of the German functionalist school,put forward the text type theory.She linked the function of language with language type and text to study translation.She explored the different functions of various types of source texts from the perspective of text type.Therefore,in this paper,the functions and positions of the source text in translation are the central issues.This paper consists of two parts.In the first part,the history of Western translation development is divided into three periods:classical,modern,and contemporary.It uses time as a clue to analyze the changes in the position and function of the source text in translation.In the second part,it uses Reiss’s text type theory as a basis to analyze the extent to which the source text restricts the translator.

A Corpus-based Study of English Translation of Chinese Traffic Signs

This paper takes Wuhan’s traffic signs as the research object,and collects the Chinese and English traffic signs in large quantities to build a small corpus.According to the text type theory proposed by German functionalist school Katarina Rice,in this article the traffic signs are classified into three categories:information type text identifier,expression type text identifier and opera⁃tion type text identifier according to six functions including indication,prompt,restriction,compulsory,persuasion and publicity.It attempts to reveal the characteristics of Chinese signs and English translations of different text types,and to explore the translation and semantic rhyme of the word"forbidden"in the English translation of high-frequency vocabulary in traffic signs.It aims to pro⁃vide reference for the English translation of traffic signs,create a good language environment,shape a good city image,and increase the degree of China's internationalization.