A Study On Framing Strategies Of Diplomatic Interpreters From The Perspective Of Mona Baker’s Narrative Theory

In diplomatic activities,interpreters cross language and cultural barriers to convey information and play an important role in two-way language conversion.As a bridge to convey China’s voice to the world,China’s diplomatic interpreting is more and more significant.Mona Baker creatively combines translation and narrative theory by drawing on the theory of social narrative.She believes that translation itself is a kind of framing.Translators and interpreters can participate in the framing of reality by strengthening,weakening or modifying the source narrative text.This new research perspective overturns the traditional view that “translation is a bridge”.Baker proposes four framing strategies in narrative theory,including temporal and spatial framing,framing by labeling,selective appropriation and repositioning of participants.Based on Mona Baker’s narrative theory,this paper aims to find out what framing strategies interpreters use in diplomatic interpreting to achieve narrative reconstruction and its purpose from a macro level,and what specific interpreting techniques are used by interpreters in implementing framing strategies from the micro level.In view of the above research questions,this paper selects “Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s Conference Press during the Two Sessions from 2015 to 2019” as the research object for a comparative analysis of Chinese and English version.It is found that at the macro level,three of the four narrative strategies proposed by Baker are applied to diplomatic interpreting.In addition,at the micro level,the interpreters employ addition,omission,substitution,extension,explanation and shift to strengthen the narrative effect of the source language,emphasizing the firm attitude and position of China and China’s devotion and responsibility in international affairs.In addition,in order for the audience to understand the meaning of the source language more easily,the interpreters have to cater to the narrative logic of the target language.It is also found that the temporal and spatial framing strategy is not applied in the text.Therefore,the application of Baker’s framing strategy in diplomatic interpreting texts has certain limitations and needs further study.To sum up,interpreters adopt different framing strategies to reconstruct different narratives through different interpreting techniques,so as to enhance the narrative effect and strengthen China’s firm attitude and clear position in international affairs,and to make the narrative conform to the linguistic logic of the target language so that the audiencecan understand the narrative content of the source language more easily.