Voicing China’s Stance: A Corpus-Based Critical Discourse Analysis of Government Interpreters’ Mediation at Report on the Work of the Government

Abstract

With China increasingly enhancing its strength and cementing its status in the international stage, it has attracted more and more attention around the world. The annual major conference document Report on the Work of the Government is an essential chance to present China’s images. Different form other genres, such political discourses feature attitude-rich and ideology-laden. While most translation studies center on linguistic aspects, exploring hidden ideologies and relations remains relatively under-explored. In this case, this paper will conduct a corpus-based study of political translation by investigating the latest ten years’ Report on the Work of the Government from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Through text description, discourse practice interpretation, and social practice explanation of the collected data, it uncovers that such political documents are ideology-governed and translation-mediated and interpreters tend to mediate and intervene the source text. There are complex factors resulting in such phenomena, ranging from translators’ and interpreters’ identity, assumptions of readers’ expectations to agents and institutions stance.