The paper first introduces null-subject sentences, which includes its definition, classification and sentence structure and then describes language traits of the government work report. In that case, it can point out the application of null-subject sentences in the government work report. Moreover, the paper further discusses text functions and translation purposes of Skopostheorie, with emphasis on its application in translation in null-subject sentences. Taking the 2015 government work report as an example, the paper explores translation techniques in Chinese null- subject sentences, putting forward such methods as adding the first personal pronoun “we”, using passive voice, changing parts of speech and using abstract nouns.
2. Literature Review
Over the past few decades, a lot of scholars and experts have done numerous researches about translation in null-subject sentences. Many fields have been touched
upon, such as in contexts of science and technology, or in Russian. For example, Shi Feng analyzed about characteristics of technological papers and proposed some translation techniques (Shi Feng, 1999). Zhang Huiseng talked about differences between null-subject sentences in Chinese and Russian (Zhang Huiseng, 2001). Though many scopes have been explored in earlier years, the domain of political essays is rarely discussed, not to say the translation me thods of null- subject sentences.文献综述
2.1 Null-subject sentences
Chinese, as a sort of logic-driven language, requires to be understood by readers subjectively through contexts to extend implied meanings. So a number of Chinese sentences can exist without subjects when readers truly comprehend implications in sentences. Furthermore, Chinese stresses much on the cohesion in meanings instead of forms. So it is especially common to omit subjects and even in some occasions, they are supposed to be left out based on the principle of smoothness. In a word, the so-called null-subject sentences refer to the ones without subjects. Such sentences are
abundant in modern Chinese and can be classified into two categories: In the first place, sentences exist with subjects omitted on a syntactic level such as “下雨了” and “几点了”. And the second kind is on a pragmatic level, which means no subjects from the point of view of pragmatism. Take, for instance, cases of “走了” and “来吧” and so on. How to define the above two kinds of null-subject sentences rests with whether
the implied subject can be determined within sentences. If a subject can be surmised easily according to the sentence itself without the help of contexts, such phenomenon can be called syntactic vacancy. If not, it is named as pragmatic vacancy. From the perspective of the sentence level of modern Chinese, null-subject sentences can be pided into two varieties: simple sentences and complex sentences. The former can
also be termed as non-subject-verb sentences, which includes following main genres. The first is the nominal ones such as “车!” and the second is the verb ones like “立 正!”. The third is the adjective ones, for instance, “好极了!” and the last is the interjectional ones, “哈哈!”, for example. And complex sentences refer to those
clauses all composed by non-subject-verb sentences. For example, “沉默,寂静”, “清 早起来,就走到那座小山上”, “别吵吵,分马了”, and “黑漆漆的,不知是日是夜”. All above examples contain logical relationship, such as paralleling, continuation,
purpose and explanation. However, no matter what kind of sentences can be classified into syntactic or pragmatic ones. What matters differently is that the second classification is much more complicated than the first one. 目的论视角下政府报告中无主句的英译(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_80416.html