Images of the Chinese government projected in its work reports: transformation through translation

Hailing Yu*, Canzhong Wu

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    15 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The article investigates the transformation of the image of the Chinese government in the process of translating its Annual Work Reports (AWR) into English. The focus is the linguistic choice of Agency, which specifies whether an event is presented as happening by itself or being caused by an external agent. By analyzing both the Chinese AWRs and their translations diachronically (2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016), the study finds that the modest and inclusive image of the government in the Chinese reports is often transformed into a competent and responsible government in the English translations through consistent linguistic choices of presenting the work as either happenings or doings. Both the linguistic shifts and image transformation, as is argued in the article, relate more to the context than to the linguistic constraints.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)74-87
    Number of pages14
    JournalLingua
    Volume214
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2018

    Keywords

    • Annual Work Report
    • agency
    • image
    • translation
    • Chinese government

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Images of the Chinese government projected in its work reports: transformation through translation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this