Strategies,Values,and Ideologies In "Translating China"

In the context of China going global and going “glocal,” this research has been done to understand “how China is translated abroad,” focusing on the prestigious magazine The Economist,its translation of China-related terms in particular,with the general goal of improving China’s political,social and cultural image in mind.In keeping with the rapid rise of China’s economic and political power,the magazine,like numerous other western media,has been extensively reporting China.Just as typically as many other American and European media,its “gazing” at China is,as often as not,biased,as is evident in its translation of China-related terms,since the translation is knowingly and sometimes unknowingly manipulated,due to the influences of patronage,ideology and other non-linguistic elements.This thesis collects data and examples from The Economist’s reports on China in the year 2018 to summarize its translation strategies of China-related terms,with an investigation of its preference of certain translation strategies and their possible underlying reasons.Furthermore,based on manipulation theory about translation and rewriting,the study examines many examples to unveil the implied value differences and the intentional and unintentional ideological manipulation at work when “translating China”.With the combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches,the thesis finds that The Economist mainly adopts foreignization strategy to translate China-related terms,especially the use of transliteration(plus annotation),which reveals The Economist’s increasing attentions to China.And The Economist’s ideology is manipulative in translating China-related terms as evident in the following angles:(1)ideological supplementation,(2)ideological rewriting,(3)ideological selection,(4)ideological perspectives in free translation.In addition,the influence of patronage and poetics is also found in its translation of Chinese culture-specific terms.