According to Nord's theory, there are three principles of the Skopos Theory: Skopos principle, coherence rule and fidelity principle. Skopos rule is the foremost principle of all translation activities; that is, in the context and culture of target language, translation should be able to act in accordance with the way in which the recipient of the target language is expected. The purpose of translation is to determine the whole process of translation. Therefore, the translator should clarify the specific translation purpose in a given context. According to this purpose, the translator decides which strategy will be adopted, literal translation, free translation or the translation strategy combining them. The coherence rule means that the translation must conform to intra-textual coherence standard, namely with readability and acceptability. This is equivalent to the principle of “faithfulness to the original text” in other translation theories, but the degree and form of the faithfulness to the original text depend on the purpose of the translation process and the translator’s understanding of the source text. These three principles constitute the basic principles of the Skopos theory. The principle of purpose is the foremost principle of the Skopos theory, and the coherence principle and the fidelity principle must be subject to the principle of purpose.
2.2 Chinese-specific terms
Chinese-specific terms refer to vocabularies which are come into being under the political, economic and cultural background. They are expressions of Chinese language in unique and typical forms. Through these words, people can fully understand China's current situation of national conditions and comprehensive development. Thus, they help to promote domestic or foreign exchanges and cooperation. The translation of these words is the rapidest changing part of the language. In the meantime, the rapid development of society will inevitably lead to corresponding changes in the translation process of words with Chinese characteristics. Therefore, in order to better translate this kind of words, we should grasp connotative meanings of words in the source language. Translators need to use expressions in line with western norms while they also must try to keep the original features so that the translation in the culture of target language can be the real equivalence of the original text in the culture of source language.
The main features of the vocabularies with Chinese characteristics are comprehensiveness, the strong sense of times and the uniqueness (Long Lichao, Zhou Xueting, 2011). The first is involved in a wide range of characteristics: Chinese-specific terms are related to all aspects of China, such as politics, economy, culture and society, throughout past 5000 years of history of China. With the continuous development of Chinese society, Chinese-specific terms are also in constant change. After a long time of accumulation, it is inevitable to preserve a large number of lexical features. In each specific period, these words intensively embody people's ideological values. These words are concentrated expressions for all aspects of social life. The second is the strong sense of times: because the society is keeping advancing. Each period's Chinese-specific terms reflect the social characteristics of the time, so new words have been emerging. These words are closely linked to that specific times. They are epitomes of all aspects of society. Besides, they own unique characteristics: different countries and regions have different national conditions, historical and cultural background. Chinese-specific terms are produced in the background of specific national conditions. China, whose culture is distinctive when it is compared with other countries, has a long and impressive history. Therefore, vocabularies produced in this environment have their own characteristics. Finally, they have strong cultural connotations: in the history of more than five thousand years, the national culture, which has various forms and rich contents, has been reflected in various vocabularies with Chinese characteristics. 目的论视域下的《政府工作报告》中国特色词汇翻译策略研究(3):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_37912.html