Research on Translation Skills of News from Cross-cultural Perspective——Taking the News Report of the Third Session of the 13th

Xiong Jianmei

(School of Foreign Languages,Sichuan Technology and Business University, Meishan 620000 China)

Abstract: Under the wave of globalization, countries in the world are getting closer and closer, forming an interdependent situation. News, as an important medium for enhancing mutual understanding between countries, has played an important role in the exchanges between countries, which makes news translation emerge. However, due to the characteristics and value of news itself, its translation has its own particularity. Therefore, on the basis of previous studies, the author takes the relevant news report of the third meeting of the 13th National People’s Congress as an example to analyze the wording and phrasing in the news, and combine specific cases to summarize the translation techniques .

Key words: News translation；Translation techniques；The cross-cultural perspective

1 Introduction

1.1 Research background

In the process of globalization, political news, as an important medium to strengthen mutual understanding among countries, plays a crucial role in country-to-country communications even as the significance of its translation has been highlighted. However, the accuracy of English news translation is affected by translators’ understanding of the original text, and some over-emphasize the semantic meaning and ignore the influence of cultural background and the characteristics of the news media. As a result, it not only brings foreign readers a strong sense of frustration but also deepens the cultural gap and the difficulty of comprehension. Thus it requires translators to adopt flexible means and also to take possession of sophisticated bilingual ability when translating that would contribute to conveying the meaning of the original text accurately and smoothly promoting the transition of the two languages. Given that differences abound in social system, economy and culture between the source language country and the target language country, political news translation is not a word-stacking task, but requires for a deep understanding of these differences in order to convey information appropriately and adequately from a cross-cultural perspective.

1.2 Purpose and significance

It plays a positive role in solving the misunderstanding and puzzlement caused by the differences between the two languages to study and analyze the strategies and methods of news translation from a perspective of cross-culture, and to improve the understanding of the culture in the source language country and that in target language country. In addition, an accurate news translation enables readers to gain a better understanding of the original meaning. To a certain extent, it could promote further communication and cooperation among the involved countries. At the same time, given the news translation is characterized by concision, accuracy and rigorousness, the study of news translation is favorable to improve learners’ abilities of translation, generalization and word selection. Especially in political news report, there are many words embedded with Chinese characteristics, translators’ demanding bilingual ability required. Using more concise and accurate expression is also in line with the trend of contemporary concise English. More importantly, knowing how to translate news properly is conductive to cultivating and strengthening a translator’s international thinking and enabling translators to “act local, think global”[1].

2 Current research on translation of political news report from the cross-cultural perspective

2.1 Domestic research

Against the background of globalization and the implementation of “going global” strategy, China’s journalism has taken off, which triggers a heated discussion on how to express China’s political stand via news and promote the communication between different cultures. Under the circumstances, a bilingual translation is particularly crucial and how to translate properly is also demanding. By searching CNKI, the author learned that the earliest available research on news translation skills in China was issued in 1979 written by Mr. Liu Bingzhang who proposed that dialectics should be applied in news translation, and the view of “connection” was basic when it came to translation theories and skills[2]. Since then, studies related to news translation skills have been carried out every a few years. Since 1994, scholars have published articles on that every year, and the number of articles has also increased sharply. Many scholars have conducted research on the standards and strategies of news translation from a crosscultural perspective because facts serve as the only source of information in news, but not artistic creation. Scholars advocate that the usage of translation skills should give priority to the essence of news information. The spirit of artistry is followed. Only to combine the two could promote the effective dissemination of news and intercultural communications. By 2020, for example, in the article published by Tong Ruolin, she suggested that translators should present news translation that the public can understand[3]. Aiming to achieve that, translators must enhance their cross-cultural awareness which may take them a long time to form.

2.2 Foreign research

A foreign scholar believes that news translation is an interdisciplinary research in terms of translation and journalism emphasizes the importance of translation in news’ production and dissemination and points out that there is still sufficient space for research from the perspective of journalism[4]. Semantic translation and communicative translation were put forward by Newmark, which is essential to be taken into consideration in news translation. Newmark compared semantic translation with communicative translation in terms of the key issues of recipients, their cultural background and their relationship with the original text. In addition, Katharina Reiss has listed the criteria for assessing the adequacy of a translation, namely, the intralinguistic criteria (semantic, lexical, grammatical and stylistic features) and the extralinguistic criteria (situation, subject, field, time, place, sender, receiver and ‘affective implication’ (humour, irony, emotion, etc)). Although these criteria are interrelated, their importance varies with different types of texts. For example, the translation of a contentfocused text should first achieve semantic equivalence while if the text is a piece of news, second place might probably be occupied by grammatical criteria. And some scholars hold that were language the only criterion, it is only necessary to convert the text in the book into the target language. In fact, there are cultural differences between the two, especially the cultural differences in customs, experience and presupposition. These cultural differences can be shown through textual analysis, which is particularly important in news translation.

3 Analysis of features of the political news report of the Third Session of the 13th NPC

There are many differences between Chinese and English news report. Chinese is a high-context culture that is characterized by indirect, implicit, and recipient-centered, and deemphasizes verbal information while English, on the other hand, is a direct, clear and speaker-centered language with emphasis on verbal information. It is of practical significance to understand the differences between high and low contexts behind language to avoid pragmatic failures in intercultural communication[5]. Next, the author has analyzed the characteristics of words and sentence patterns of the two texts and demonstrated with examples.

3.1 The lexical features

News translation is an effective mean for publicity with obvious political and guiding characteristics. Translators should be familiar with domestic and foreign current affairs and have a acute political sensitivity to ensure their appropriate views on policy in their translation[6]. Just like expressions vary on the same word in different countries, so the translators need to thoroughly check when writing, to avoid ambiguity and misunderstanding. Besides, the selected word in news translation is quite vivid. News translation can express abstract political terms or concepts in vivid language. In this way, the reader can also quickly receive the message to convey. The following are some examples from the news report of the Third Session of the 13th National People’s Congress.

3.1.1 Accuracy

S1: 我代表国务院，向大会报告政府工作。

T1: On behalf of the State Council, I will now report to you on the work of the government

Analysis: News translation is a powerful mean of external publicity, has a strong political and guiding nature. In this sentence, 国务院is translated as“the State Council”which varies in different countries. For example,国务院in the United States should be translated as the State Department. In Japan, there is no 国务院; the counterpart is the Cabinet.Therefore,there is no room for any sloppiness in news translation thus translators must be inquisitive,careful,and not allow to pretend to be smart, and possess a high degree of political sensitivity to ensure that the language and political views are appropriate.

S2: 出台外商投资法实施条例，增设上海自贸试验区新片区。

T2: Regulations for the implementation of the Foreign Investment Law were adopted, and the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone Lin’gang New Area was established.

Analysis: When we want to express the concept of “ 区域”，there are many words to choose in English, such as “region”, “distinct”, “zone” and “area”. “Region” refers to a corresponding large administrative region, such as “Xinjiang Autonomous Region” and “Hong Kong Special Administration Region”. “District” means a region marked off for administrative or other purposes, which is smaller than the “region” mentioned before and usually a region within a town or a municipality, such as “Haidian Distinct”. “Zone” is a circumscribed geographical region characterized by some distinctive features and usually is developed domestically while if cooperated with foreign economies, it should be called “area”. The reason why “ 上 海自贸试验区” is translated as “the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone” is that it is established by the Chinese government ,located in Pudong and falling within the category of China’s free trade zones.

Besides, this news report is a political document for the government to accept the general public’s supervision and an access for citizens to know about the government. Therefore, many of the culture-loaded expressions with Chinese characteristics need translating accurately. For example, the following chapter 4 covers acronyms, such as “四风”, “三大攻坚战”, etc, some metaphorical words, such as “放水养鱼” and buzzwords including “米袋子、菜篮子”.

These culture-loaded words are closer to the Chinese people’s life and they are also easy to be understood and accepted. However, for Western media and citizens, they may be confused on account of the lack of common cultural background. Thus, it requires translators to choose appropriate skills, such as addition, to deliver a good performance in external publicity.

3.1.2 Vividness

S1: 政府工作存在不足，形式主义、官僚主义仍较突出。

T1: There is still room for improvement in the work of government. Pointless formalities and bureaucratism remain an acute issue.

Analysis: In this case, “存在不足” is translated as “There is still room...”. If it is translated as “There are some deficiencies in the government work...”, it seems like a word-for-word mechanical translation. Additionally, the word “room” gives people a sense of space. Translated as the former one, it is full of vividness, enabling people to create a sense of pictures. It is conceivable that there are still some shortcomings that need to be overcome if the government is to do its job well.

S2: 新兴产业持续壮大，传统产业加快升级。

T2: Emerging industries continued to grow; traditional industries saw faster upgrading.

Analysis: The verb in second half of this sentence resorts to personification giving “traditional industries” the act of human characteristics. The political news report is serious but not rigid thus personalized words enable the text to be understand easily. This is very common in the rest of the report. For instant, “发达国家” and “铁路强国” are translated as “an advanced economy” and “a powerhouse in the railway sector” respectively.

3.2 The syntactic features

It is easy to find that Chinese is a theme-prominent language while English, a subject-prominent one. The information structure of Chinese sentence is mainly themerheme type, while English sentence, usually subject-predicate one[6]. Therefore, when translating, translators should transform the Chinese structure into the English one and add necessary conjunctions appropriately. Besides, Chinese is also a covert coherence-prominent language whose meanings are hidden behind an implicit logic. Sometimes, sentences still make sense even without subjects, while in English, sentences must be complete and need to use a conjunction to present the logic between two sentences. In this political news report, the translators need to show the missing subjects and other elements on the paper. Here are two examples.

3.2.1 Passive sentence

S1: 改革迈出了重要的步伐。

T1: Major headway was made in reform and opening up.

Analysis: News reports attach importance to the objective statement of facts, British and American reports frequently use the passive voice, to prevent subjective assumptions and to avoid revealing personal feelings. Influenced by the evolution of Chinese, the Chinese news reports take people or events as the object of a sentence, and most news reports emphasize the actor, so the active voice is often seen. Therefore, in the process of translation practice, the author usually transforms the active voice in news into the passive sentence in English by changing the subject as the object. In this case, the English translation has changed the Chinese object “步伐” to the subject.

S2: 三大攻坚战取得关键进展。

T2: Pivotal progress was achieved in the three critical battles.

Analysis: This example is similar to the previous one in that they both demonstrate an object fact. Unlike the soft news, like the feature story, whose language is lively and attractive as if you are personally on the scene, the political news report falls into hard news which is a kind of objective report with a certain degree of effectiveness. Therefore, passive voice is always used in it. By the way, there are some exceptions. For instant, when it comes to the fifth topic in this political news report about implementing the strategy of expanding domestic demand in the following text, there is a sentence “扩大有效投资” whose sentence structure is familiar to the examples mentioned above, but it cannot be translated into the passive voice. Its translation is “we will expand effective investment”. The difference between them lies in the role they play in their paragraph each. This sentence is at the beginning of the paragraph, equaling to the guideline with a strong subjectivity so much so that translators address the problem through adding the subject instead of translating into a passive voice. Therefore, it depends on the specific context that which kind of translation skill should be adopted.

3.2.2 Integrality

S1: 稳健的货币政策要更加灵活适度。

T1: We will pursue a prudent monetary policy in a more flexible and appropriate way.

Analysis: This example is taken from a subtitle in the second section. As the soul and essence of news report, titles play a role of highlighting and summarizing the theme in a work. In the rest of the political news report of the Third Session of the 13th NPC, each representing a different respect thus people can know what will be covered next through reading only the general title of each section. In addition, the Chinese subtitles in each subsequent section are almost subject-free sentences, and after being translated into English, the subject is added. Therefore, the author will not list them one by one. As we all know, on account of Chinese with a profound cultural heritage, people can infer the subject from its implicit logic. No matter in daily communication or in literary works, and even if the subject is not clearly written, it is easy to found non-subject sentence. In contrast, English emphasizes sentence integrality where a sentence cannot be without a subject and a predicate. In this sentence, you can infer that implementers of monetary policies are the government at all levels, so it is acceptable to add the subject “our government” in translation, or to vaguely translate it as “we”.

S2: 坚持实施积极地财政政策，着力减税降费、补短板调结构。

T2: We continue to pursue a proactive fiscal policy, focusing on cutting taxes and fees, strengthening areas of weakness, and promoting structural adjustment.

Analysis: In the original Chinese text, there is no subject because it is easy for the Chinese readers to detect the agent of the verbs,“实施”, “减”, “降”, “补”, and “调” in their way of thinking. It is the government or relevant department which is usually replaced with the word “we”. Therefore, they will not make such a mistake that they do not know what the subject is. However, if literal translation is used in the translation without presenting the potential subject, it is not in line with the thinking model of the English readers, and even will lead to misunderstanding. In balance, it is imperative to add the word in.

4 Translation skills from cross-cultural perspective in the Third Session of the 13th NPC

4.1 Liberal translation

“Liberal translation” means to adopt the way of expression used by the target readers to convey the information of the original text. Liberal translation requires the translator to get closer to the target readers, and the translators must express like the native author. Liberal translation helps readers understand the original text better and enhance the readability and aesthetic feeling of the translation, which requires translators, on the basis of maintaining words’ form and original features, to add necessary background information, or to supplement the missing semantic information. In this political news reports, translators have given explanatory translations of some Chinese political neologisms, and when necessary, they need to abandon the form, such as word order, and present clear translations of the original meaning[6]. In a cross-cultural perspective, the translators need to convey the content of the original text in a way to which readers are accustomed. Here are some examples in the translation of the Third Session of the 13th National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China. The following are some examples using the skill of liberal translation in the news report of the Third Session of the 13th National People’s Congress.

S1: 持续纠治‘四风’，为基层松绑减负。

T1: we continued to address the practice of formalities for formalities’ sake, bureaucracy, hedonism, and extravagance, and took steps to ensure that people working at the primary level are free from unnecessary restrictions and excessive burdens.

Analysis: This translation version adopts liberal translation for English-speaking readers’ taste. “风” in Chinese refers to a natural phenomenon caused by the movement of air caused by solar radiation，called “wind”. Obviously, the “四风” here can not be translated as “four wind”, and it is a word with Chinese characteristics, refers to four bad social atmosphere, so in the translation in English, you need to explain the meaning of one by one as mentioned earlier; “松绑” means to untie somebody’s rope, here it dose not mean that there is a rope tying grassroots people. Translators should understand its implied meaning, “松绑” means formalism is growing. As a result, the burden on the grassroots’ shoulders increased, plenty of time and energy of community cadres have been taken up to handle it and the efficiency their work has been seriously affected. This policy is aimed at liberating cadres working in community from the yoke of formalism.

S2: .....放水养鱼，助力市场主体纾困发展。

T2: ... to create a more enabling environment and help market entities overcome difficulties and achieve development.

Analysis: The phrase, “ 放 水 养 鱼”, not only reflects inherent rules of economic development, but also in accordance with Chinese traditional culture. Economically, if there is not enough water, fish is hard to survive. However, if it floods, a bubble economy will form, and someone will make arbitrage from it. The government will step up efforts to implement macro policy to establish an enabling environment for market entities, particularly micro, small, and medium businesses, and selfemployed individuals and help them tide over the challenging time. This policy reflects the people-centered development philosophy. Therefore, translators should not finish this work literally, but needs to express the true meaning of the original text.

S3: ...留得青山，赢得未来。

T3: ... they can sustain themselves and assure success for the future.

Analysis: “留得青山”is quoted from a novel written by a novelist, Ling Mengchu, in Ming Dynasty, called Amazing Tales-First Series where the old saying goes: where there is a life, there is a hope. Green hill is one of the common images in ancient poetry and prose as well. Its unchanging nature also provides a reference for people to think and inspires people to transcend worldly fame and fortune. When it comes to strengthening the implementation of macro policies to stabilize enterprises and ensure employment, the report stresses that only when your businesses keep running and sustain themselves with the help of favorable policies, you can assure success for the future. It suggests that people should take a long-term view and learn to focus on the key points, not be limited to immediate interests and never put the cart before the horse.

S4: 加强监管，防止资金空转套利。

T4: We should tighten regulation and prevent funds from simply circulation in the financial sector for the sake of arbitrage.

Analysis: “空转” means a machine works with no load, or the wheels or belt can not work effectively on account of little friction force. As a result, it is usually translated into “spin” and “idle”, but “资金转空” means capital flows among multiple institutions in the financial system without flowing into, or at least directly into the real economy. Therefore, the translation of “空转” should indicate the original meaning, not be translated as “spin” or “idle” so much so that readers can understand better.

S5: 坚持房子是用来住的，不是用来炒的定位。

T5: Acting on the principle that houses are for living in, not for speculation.

Analysis: In Chinese, “炒” means one of the most widely used cooking methods. “炒面”, for example, may be translated as “fried noodle”, and “saute the Onions for 5 minutes”. Nowadays, it also refers to some people who buy and sell in order to make profits,such as speculation in real estate and stock market, to expand the influence of pop stars and writers though repeated publicity, and also to dismiss an employee. The word, “ 炒”, used in at the third session of the 13th Congress of the PRC to promote a new type of urbanization is not its original meaning, but refers to the investment generated by the development of the real estate industry.

S6: 粮食产量保持在1.3 万亿斤以上。新建高标准农田8000 万亩。

T6: Grain output was kept above 650 million metric tons. The area of high-standard cropland will be increased by 5.33 million hectares.

Analysis: Both “ 斤” and “ 亩” are Chinese units of measurement. “ 斤” can be tracked back to the oracle of the Shang Dynasty, even earlier. As a unit of weight in wikipedia, it is classified in the column of “other uses” , interpreted as “‘jin’( 斤), the Chines name for the ‘catty’ , a traditional East Asian unit of weight. Besides the translation for catty, it is commonly translated as “half a kilogram”. In this report, if “1.3万亿斤” is translated with “jin” as the unit, the outcome should be 650,000,000,000kg, such a long number which makes people fearful and easy to misread and is not in line with the features of news translation. “Metric tons” is equivalent to 1,000 kilograms in Chinese. Therefore a concise and understandable version of “650 metric tons” is displayed. “亩” has also been put into use in the long ago, written in jinwen earliest, an ancient Chinese script, and is a unit of land area under the municipal system in China. As one of frequently used the units, foreigners are not so familiar with this aged Chinese unit. These units need to be converted at first and then translated according to formulas, for example, one mu is equal to 60 square feet, 15 mu is equal to a hectare (In ancient China, it was mainly calculated with units of “60” as a period.). Chart 1 is a comparison of frequently used Chinese and English units. If you master skills of the conversion of different Chinese and English units, the possibility of the dilemma where a mistake is as good as a mile would be reduced.

地积单位Mu(亩) Hectare(公顷)100 ㎡ 100 mu重量单位Qian(钱) Liang(两) Jin(斤) Kilogram(公斤)5g(municipally) 50g 10liang(municipally)100qian 1000g

4.2 Literal translation

As Newmark said, compared with communicative translation, semantic translation tried to render the exact contextual meaning of the original in accordance with the semantic and syntactic structure of the second language as closely as possible[7]. To some extent, literal translation is similar to semantic translation in nature. It requires translators to get closer to the author and adopt the expression corresponding to the source language to convey the content of the original text. The purpose of literal translation is to preserve and reflect the characteristics of foreign countries and language styles, and retain the exoticism for the target readers on the basis of the differences between national cultures. As it contains profound national cultural connotations, information in news highlights the development and transformation of a country on politics, economy and society[8]. Therefore, it is of vital importance to convey the original text in an objective and accurate way. Here are some examples of literal translation used in the news report of the Third Session of the 13th National People’s Congress.

S1: 中华儿女风雨同舟、守望相助，筑起了抗击疫情的巍峨长城。

T1: We, all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation, have stood together in the most trying of times and built a Great Wall of solidarity against the epidemic.

Analysis: The Great Wall is a complete defense system the greatest military defense project in the history of the world. Against the background where COVID19 is sweeping the world, the individual efforts of each Chinese contributes to building a Great Wall against the epidemic. This report did not translate “中华儿女” into “Chinese” in general, but translated literally as “sons and daughters” reflecting the affinity between each Chinese and the motherland. The history of the Great Wall can date back to the Western Zhou Dynasty. The Great Wall condenses the blood and tears of the workers in ancient China. As a symbol of will, it is inextricably linked with every Chinese. In the original text, the literal translation of the “长城” as “the Great Wall” fully display the difficulties of fighting the epidemic and the bravery of our protectors.

S2: 压实‘米袋子’省长责任负责制和‘菜篮子’市长负责制。

T2: We will fully implement the system of provincial governors assuming responsibility for the ‘rice bag’ and city mayors for the ‘vegetable basket’.

Analysis: As a package of favorable policies, “rice bag” and “vegetable basket” concerns the national economy and people’s livelihood, and also aim to maintain the grain output consecutively increasing in the tenth year and also improve the quality of major agricultural products. As we all know, China is a big agricultural country with a long history, and the Chinese people regard food as their first necessity among which rice and vegetables are the most basic ones in their daily life, so the literal translation of “米袋子” and “菜篮子” is more downto-earth and reflects the philosophy of the Communist Party of China, which is people-centered, and whose purpose is to serving people wholeheartedly. The affinity between the Party and people has been presented.

4.3 Addition

Addition is based on the original text according to the need of meaning and rhetoric and dose not add words randomly, but in order to be more faithfully and accurately, to convey the content of the original text. This technique can explain professional words in the news text and show the omitted elements more accurately. In this political news report, there are a number of abbreviations of professional words containing mathematical words, which can easily confuse readers if they are not explained clearly. Chart 2 shows the abbreviations and their English translations respectively in this news report delivered at the Third Session of the 13th National People’s Congress.

一带一路 The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)四风 formalities for formalities’ sake, bureaucratism, hedonism, and extravagance四早 early detection, reporting, quarantine, and treatment of cases三大攻坚战three critical battles: preventing and defusing financial risks, targeted poverty alleviation, pollution control六稳ensure stability in employment, financial operations, foreign trade, foreign investment, domestic investment, and expectations 六保ensure security in job, basic living needs, operations of market entities, food and energy security, stable industrial and supply chains, and the normal functioning of primary-level governments两新一重 new infrastructure and new urbanization initiatives and major projects“十四五”规划 the 14th Five-Year Plan

一国两制 The policy of “ One Country, Two Systems”四个意识strengthen our consciousness of the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms, follow the leadership core, and keep in alignment with the central Party leadership 四个自信 stay confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics两个维护uphold General Secretary Xi Jinping’s core position on the Party Central Committee and in the party as a whole, and uphold the Party Central Committee’s authority and its centralized unified leadership

(chart 2)

These examples are simple in form but rich in content. Chinese, the only characters that have been in continuous use for thousands of years since ancient times worldwide, is able to express rich meanings in short words. These examples are abbreviated in the Chinese text, which not only adds to the beauty of rhyme, but also reflects Chinese wisdom. Given that English-speaking countries have different social and cultural backgrounds from China, for instance, to literally translate the “ 六 稳、 六 保” into “six stability and six guarantees” may make it difficult to understand what the author attempt to convey. At first, this policy was rolled out to deal with the trade friction between China and the United States, and subsequently, followed the epidemic sweeping the world, it has been applied to alleviate the huge and adverse impact China’s economy suffered. In this political news report, the Central Committee of the CPC highlighted the importance to ensure stability on six fronts and maintain security in six areas. It is not hard to find that “稳” and “保” serve as verbs here, followed by the objects. Generally speaking, ordinary readers may not be familiar with the policies, which require translators to add the objects when translating, so that the reader will not be confused.

4.4 Omission

Omission refers to eliminate repetitive and needless words but dose not change the meaning of the original text, or to replace redundant and cumbersome ones with concise and clear ones, the purpose of which is to make the translated text express the content of the original text in a smooth and concise way[9]. English news writing has always followed this principle that “ the simpler, the better”, and the style of writing should be concise and clear but not redundant[6]. Due to the influence of thinking and aesthetic habits in a Chinese way, there is often a lot of redundant information in Chinese news. Therefore, translators need to deal with such factors flexibly according to the actual situation, and simplify, modify or even delete them.

S1: 提高基本医疗服务水平。

T1: We will improve basic medical services.

Analysis: The word “水平” in the original did not been translated, because it serves as a category word there which is also called general term or category term[10], and which means a certain kind of thing, event or state of affairs with generality. In addition to “水平”, common category words in the political news reports also include “ 建 设”, “ 风 尚”, “ 标 准”, “ 局面”, “ 方 式”, etc. These words can be omitted in translation. However, it does not mean that the appearance of each of these words can be classified as category words and be omitted or not translated. The application of this method requires translators’ careful analysis and judgment in advance.

S2: ...扎实开展‘不忘初心，牢记使命’。

T2: ... started an initiative to raise awareness of the need to stay true to the Party’s founding mission”.

S3: ...人民军队在疫情防控中展示了听党指挥、闻令而动、勇挑重担的优良作风。

T3: The people’s armed forces demonstrated fine conduct by reacting swiftly to the Party’s commands and shouldering heavy responsibilities in the COVID-19 control.

Analysis: When translating Chinese four-character words, if possible, translators should do it literally; if not, they should not break the meaning of the words in order to translate them. What they should do is to translate their actual meaning. Example 2 is basically a literal translation while example 3 does not stick to the format of the original text but abandons the original sentence structure and translates the true meaning to be expressed. If translated according to its literal meaning, the sentence will become very long, many unnecessary words would be presented.

5 Conclusion

All countries coexist in an environment where different cultures interplay. News serves as a buffer to cushion cultural shocks in intercultural communications. High-quality translations are contributed to communication and further cooperation between the two parties. On the contrary, they may arouse misunderstandings and frictions.

The political news report delivered at the Third Session of the 13th National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China is for the members of the CPPCC National Committee, and also for the whole nation. Thus the language should not be obscure and difficult to understand. Unlike the traditional way of learning English starting from simplicity to complexity, the current trend of English is prong to clarity, brevity and the avoidance of unnecessary language. This fact can be detected in the characteristics of the selected words and sentences in this political news translation. Therefore, the way to convey message in concise expressions is to choose accurate and vivid words so that readers can receive what the original author tends to express. In addition, when talking about some events with strong objectivity, such as news reports, you ought to tell the story in a rational and objective tone, which can be done well by using the passive voice in English. In the process of bilingual translation, it is inevitable to encounter problems such as information mismatch and cultural differences thus you need to adopt appropriate translation skills for assistance. This suggests that when confronted with difficulties in translation, you should not carry out word-to-word translation blindly but to analyze and disassemble sentences and then translate with the assistance of translation skills.

Therefore, when dealing with problems mentioned above, translators should possess empathy for their readers and resort to some skills to finish their work. By doing so, it can contribute to reducing ambiguity in reading and helping readers digest and understand the content. As a translator, it is of necessity to own a cross-cultural perspective and to be familiar with similarities and differences between two cultures thus he or she is able to be a competent messenger.