On Chinese-English Translation Strategies of Null-subject Sentences

Abstract

With the on-going globalization, foreign publicity, to which translation is indispensable, has served as a showcase for countries to demonstrate their soft power. The foreign publicity translation is now of greater significance as Covid-19 is still raging across the globe and the international landscape remains confusing and changing. The null-subject sentence is a sentence pattern, widely used, in Chinese, while there is no equivalence in English. Therefore, in terms of its translation, translators should adopt strategies in a flexible way. This paper summarizes four strategies frequently used in translating null-subject sentences in foreign publicity materials: to add a subject to the sentence, to change the sentence from active voice to passive voice, to change the subject of the sentence, and to use the imperative sentence. Besides, this paper analyzes the source and target texts in the report. It aims at providing reference for translation of null-subject sentences in foreign publicity materials.