A Report on Translation of UN Career

Mao Yanli

【Abstract】This report translates the recruitment advertisement of the United Nations into Chinese. As the translated version serves for massive job-hunters， thus Communicative Translation of Peter Newmark is a good choice since this translation strategy is quite reader-oriented. Furthermore， there are some differences between English and Chinese， so such translation techniques as transformation of voice， amplification and omission will be used. This report made me know that a qualified translator should have a good knowledge of translation theories， learn the differences between English and Chinese and improve translation abilities through continuous practice.

【Key words】Recruitment Advertisement； Communicative Translation； Differences between English and Chinese

1. Introduction

This material is an extract of UN Career， which is about 3200 words. UN Career is a website for providing information for job-hunters who want to find a post in the United Nations， which also determines that the material has some features of advertisement. In another word， the function of UN Career or here the material is to attract and provide detailed information to employees.

2. Description of the Translation Task

2.1 Source of the Task

UN Career is a website for providing information to employees who want to find a position in the United Nations including four parts ：why work at UN， what can I do at UN， what are my career options and how do I apply. From the four parts we can see that UN Career explains its values， contents of working， requirements for job-hunters and the ways to application .

2.2 Features of the Task

2.2.1 Stylistic Features of the Task

This report is a Recruitment Advertisement， however， to a large extent， it belongs to Advertisement. Then what is Advertisement？ According to the definition given by American Marketing Association （AMA）：Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products， services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media （许建忠， 2002： 96）.Naturally there are some loaded language in the text and the language has the persuasive power and will influence the value of people.

2.2.2 Linguistic Features of the Task

（1）Diction Analysis

The words of the advertisement should obey such basic principles as brief， vividness， and using emotional words （translated from 许建忠， 2002： 105）.

However， as UN Career is a platform of United Nations providing information to all the job-hunters which determines that the words used should be objective .So ，we can hardly find any persuasive expressions and nearly all the words adopted are quite simple and easy to be understood.

（2）Syntactic Analysis

Three patterns of sentences are often adopted in English Advertisements. They are declarative sentence ，interrogative sentence， and imperative sentence respectively. Among the three sentence patterns， the declarative sentence is used most frequently. （translated from 许建忠， 2002： 106）

A. Declarative Sentences

Declarative sentences can objectively state things. Since UN Career is a recruitment platform of the United Nations， a specified organization which means the expressions should be objective and clear. And nearly 90% of the sentences of the source text are declarative sentences. So when we read the source text， we find that information are quite clear and objective.

B. Interrogative Sentences

As the declarative sentences make readers passive in accepting information， while question sentences will arouse peoples attention and stimulate them to explore information useful for them . Actually， this is quite right for it conforms to the writing function of the material attracting more employees to work for the United Nations. Question sentences can attract peoples attention and make them consider whether they should have a try or could find a post in the United States. Thus it is a quite excellent beginning.

C. Passive Sentences

From reading we can find that there are some passive sentences used in the source text. Passive Sentences are used as to achieve the aim of stressing. Besides， passive sentences can make information expressed more objective. Since the UN Career is official website the United Nations， which means the words or expressions should be more objective. After reading the source text we can find that there are many passive sentences， which transfer the information of the material well and are quite easy to understand .

（3）Discourse

English is low-context language while Chinese is high-context language， which means English attaches more importance to grammatical form by using cohesive words and functional words. By contrast， since Chinese is paratactic which means it is not limited by such grammatical requirements and more importantly， Chinese is often zero-subject. （translated from 连淑能， 2006： 32） Cohesion is to make the meaning of the source text more clear. Thus， in order to achieve the goal， the author will use some explicit or implicit expressions to better achieve the aim.

3. Difficulties in Translation

3.1 Fixed Expressions

There are some fixed expressions such as .post adjustment means “服务地点差价调整指数” and compulsory contribution means “派捐” in the article thus I need to find them out and get the meaning of them by looking them up in dictionaries when I look through the article as to understand the text better .

3.2 Synonyms

We know words or expressions that have the same or nearly the same meaning as another in the same language are synonyms. For example， synonyms as pay， benefit， ，allowance. These words are different， though the differences are quite small. Thus in order to make an accurate translated version， I need to find out the small differences of them .

3.3 Recruitment Advertisement Formulas

As I have referred in the second part of this report（the stylistic features of the text） that UN Career is a recruitment platform of the United Nations ， a specified organization which means the expressions should be objective and clear.However， it belongs to advertisements， which determines that it should be attractive， which is the fundamental function of advertisement.There are some expressions which are different from nearly 90% of the source text need to be translated according to the principles of advertisement.

3.4 Differences between English and Chinese Language in Syntactic Level

English more often resorts to overt cohesion frequently using various cohesive ties such as relatives， connectives， prepositions， and some others. While Chinese more frequently relies on convert coherence and context which focuses on temporal or logical sequences. Chinese more often resorts to word order， contracted sentence， four-character expressions， and some grammatical or rhetorical devices such as repletion ，antithesis， and parallelism .

Besides， passive voice is preferred in English while it should avoided in Chinese.

As a result， although sometimes it is easy to understand the meaning of the English sentence， it is quite difficult to transfer it into Chinese .Here Chinese means expressions that conform to the Chinese ways of saying things.

4. Strategy Used in this Translation Activity

The kernel concept of Peter Newmark is Semantic Translation and Communicative Translation. On one hand， communication translation attaches importance to both source text and target text. So， to a large extent， it will be faithful to the source text which is also the fundamental requirement of translation activity. On the other hand， the source text is a Recruitment Advertisement which determines that it should shoulder the responsibility of attract employees thus the target version should be reader-oriented. So compared with Semantic Translation， communication translation is better .

5. Translation Techniques

There is no specified definition of translation technique， which is also quite general. From my own point of view， I think it means some specified methods or techniques used to deal with difficulties met in English -Chinese translation， or vice verse .

As we all know that English and Chinese belongs to two different language systems. Thus the transformation between Chinese and English is not easy. Thus I need to know the features of English and Chinese as to make the translated version more readable and obey the expression habit of target-language readers.

6. Conclusion

After translation， I know better about the classification about UN， requirements to translators and interpreters， and qualifications related to work in UN. In this era of globalization， communications among countries are increasing. As students majored in translation and interpretation should learn English well as to be qualified translators or interpreters. Even we still have a long way to go， we should continue to learn and strength other relatively personal qualifications. Rome is not built one day， thus we should never say no to ourselves as if we are trying to be better. Then from the perspective of translation， we should know the stylistic features and use different translation strategies towards different texts.

References：

[1]Newmark，Peter.A Textbook of Translation[M].Prentiee-Hall：New York and London，1988.

[2]连淑能.英译汉教程[M].北京：高等教育出版社，2006.

[3]许建忠.工商企业翻译实务[M].北京：中国对外翻译出版社，2002.

作者简介：Mao Yanli（1990.2-）， Female， Jianyang， Sichuan， School of Foreign Languages of Northwest University， Postgraduate， 2014， Study in Translation.