German Translation Strategies of Chinese Flowing Sentences: A Case Study on Xi Jinping Erzählt Geschichten Über Die Kommunistische Partei Chinas

With the continuous construction of China’s foreign external discourse system, the significance of party history, as an official historical document of the party, in telling a good Chinese story and spreading a good Chinese voice, cannot be ignored. The book Xi Jinping Erzählt Geschichten Über Die Kommunistische Partei Chinas includes more than 80 stories of Communist Party of China (CPC) party history told by General Secretary Xi Jinping, with focused narratives and distinctive thematic ideas. Its prominent linguistic feature is that it contains many flowing sentences composed of multiple clauses with loose structure, characteristic of Chinese syntax. Given this linguistic feature, this paper will clarify the logical relationship between the clauses in the Chinese flowing sentences with the help of the Thematic Progression under the Theme-Rheme Theory, to choose a suitable translation strategy to make the German translation fluent without losing information. It is hoped that this study can enrich the research field of flowing sentences, provide a reference for the German translation strategy of Party history at the micro level, and promote the dissemination of Party history literature in German-speaking countries, to strengthen the influence of Chinese culture and the credibility of Chinese discourse in the international arena.

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