Abstract:

There has always been a dispute between form and meaning in the C-E translation of “abbreviations in political discourse”. The view of “reader orientation” holds that the primary task of translation is to convey meaning, and shortened forms are difficult to be understood by foreign readers. However, the view of “original orientation” holds that the abbreviated form has the function of suggestive meaning and associative memory, which highlights the characteristics of Chinese political discourse and cultural confidence. This study attempts to provide a new explanation of the debate between the two orientations from a cognitive perspective by categorizing more than 500 abbreviations used in Beijing Municipal Government Work Reports form 2013 to 2022. We found that the translation methods of abbreviation terms are determined by the cognitive way of abbreviation generation, and put forward corresponding countermeasures to improve the quality of abbreviation translation to help the translation of characteristic expressions in Chinese political discourse.

Key words: abbreviation terms, C-E translation of abbreviation terms, C-E translation of political discourse, cognitive perspective