Translation from Chinese to English: Audience Awareness in External Communication Translation

Since the beginning of the 21st century, China has successfully hosted a series of international events, showcasing its strength to the world and elevating its status. With the increasing number of these events, the external communication work of various departments has become increasingly demanding.

As a "window" for foreign friends to understand China, external communication texts play a crucial role in shaping China's international image. However, whether the translation is done properly directly impacts China's international image, as foreign readers have not always been very receptive to Chinese external communication translations. The reason behind this lies in the fact that many translators often equate external communication translation with literary translation, emphasizing autonomy and creativity while neglecting the thinking habits of the target language audience, lacking "audience awareness."

"Audience awareness," a key term in rhetoric, emphasizes being "audience-centric" and is closely related to translators, providing valuable reference for translation. The purpose of external communication translation is to "persuade" the audience, thereby achieving the effect of promoting China, highlighting the importance of the translator's audience awareness.

Vladimir Komissarov, a renowned Russian translation theorist, in his seminal work "Modern Translation Studies," mentions pragmatic adaptation, emphasizing that translators should increase their necessary background knowledge to ensure that the translated text provides an equivalent understanding and emotional impact to the target audience as the original text.

For example:

"The country plans to cease logging in the Great and Lesser Khingan Mountains and Daxing'anling region of Heilongjiang."

In this sentence, geographical locations like the Great and Lesser Khingan Mountains, Daxing'anling, and Heilongjiang may not be familiar to many Russians, thus translating these place names often requires additional qualifiers such as regions and provinces.

Another example:

"Since the reform and opening-up policy, township enterprises in China have emerged like mushrooms after rain."

In this sentence, the translation of "like mushrooms after rain" is crucial. Since bamboo shoots do not grow in Russia, it cannot be directly translated as "like bamboo shoots after rain." Instead, translating bamboo shoots into the more familiar concept of mushrooms ensures an equivalent emotional impact on the target audience.

External communication work is becoming increasingly important in the new historical period, providing a platform to introduce China to the world, express Chinese viewpoints, enhance China's discourse power globally, and shape and disseminate China's image. The quality of external communication translation determines whether the conveyed Chinese culture is attractive, whether foreign readers can incorporate information containing Chinese elements into their consciousness, ultimately affecting the success of external communication work. Therefore, the awareness of putting "foreign audiences at the center" should run through the entire process of external communication translation, guiding translators to choose the right translation strategies and improve the effectiveness of external communication work.

◀️：The Awareness of Audience in Translation

▶️：Translation of Advertisement