Translation As Narration/Re-narration

Narratives are “the everyday stories we live by”(Baker,2006a: 3),they are featured by inter-media,inter-disciplines and inter-genres and play a key role in cross-cultural communication.Narratives not only represent reality,but constitute reality by accentuating,undermining or modifying aspects of the narrative(s)in a way to intensify or weaken international political conflict,and in doing so participate in shaping social reality(Baker,2006a: 5).The narrative account on translation proposed by Mona Baker is of great significance,because it reveals that translation not only closely connects politics,but also creates politics.This provides a theoretical basis to discuss how political speeches are constructed by translation from the perspective of narration/re-narration.The thesis interprets English translation of President Xi?s diplomatic speeches from Baker?s narrative account and reveals how translation as narration/re-narration is framed by accentuating,undermining and modifying the narratives in the source texts or utterances.By analyzing these framing strategies,the thesis elaborates how narratives work to enhance consensus and weaken conflict.It is hoped that the thesis will offer some constructive suggestions on establishing a narrative discourse system with Chinese characteristics and on adopting more effective strategies for international communication.It is found that by narrative accrual on personal and public narratives and temporal and spatial relocation,the translation of President Xi?s diplomatic speeches effectively accentuates positive narratives on China?s image,which is beneficial to make a closer relation with foreign countries and their people and is conducive to cultural respect and mutual understanding.It is also found that fallacies like “China Threat Theory” and “Clash of Civilizations” are undermined by the labeling strategy and selective appropriation of meta-narratives.Moreover,the research reveals that modifying the narratives in the source texts or utterances is a process of narrative adjustment and narrative intervention manipulated by poetics and ideology.Narrative adjustment is aimed at getting close to the literary and cultural environment of the foreigners,thus the means of domestication,contextualization and trans-editing are involved to enhance narrative communication.In exchanges with the outside world,however,the narration/re-narration inevitably falls into a competition between the “self” and the “other”,more specifically,a competition between “Chinese narratives” and “western narratives” due to different ideologies and political stances.What should be pointed out is that the competition is by no means a zero-sum game,but an attempt based on the principle of addressing the differences while seeking the common ground.