Abstract
Agent visibility in Chinese emergency management texts presents a distinct challenge for English translation. These texts—emergency plans, public notices, and similar genres—are essential for information dissemination and response coordination, making their English translation critical for international cooperation. The central difficulty lies in divergent linguistic conventions: Chinese favors agentless structures such as passive sentences and zero-subject constructions to convey objectivity and authority, rendering the agent “invisible.” English, by contrast, prioritizes clarity and logical explicitness and thus typically requires agent visibil-ity. Drawing on Functional Equivalence and Skopos Theory, this study identifies patterns of agent invisibility in Chinese source texts—manifested in non-finite verbs, implicit passive voices, and fixed expressions—and traces these patterns to Chinese parataxis, collectivist cultural norms, and the authoritative function of the genre. In response, targeted translation strategies are proposed. Where the target text demands clarity of responsibility or enhanced readability—as in government announcements—agents should be made visible through explicit subjects or active-voice constructions. Where texts emphasize universality—technical guidelines, for example—agent invisibility may be preserved via English passive constructions or impersonal subjects. Agent handling, in this light, constitutes a functional adaptation to target-language norms and textual purposes. The study contributes to specialized translation research while offering practical guidance for improving both the quality and international communicative reach of China’s emergency management discourse.
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