A Corpus-Based Study On Explicitation Of Connectives In English Translation Of President Xi Jinping’s Speeches

Since Baker(1993)proposed the translation universal hypothesis,explicitation,one of the translation universals,has intrigued many researchers.Many studies investigated explicitation of target texts compared to source texts,and explicitation of translation in comparison with original texts.Some case studies demonstrated explicitation whereas others failed to support the explicitation hypothesis.Studies on explicitation were mostly based on literary texts and relatively less attention was given to political texts,and even less to speeches delivered by President Xi Jinping.The present research focuses on explicitation of connectives in Chinese-English translation of political discourse,and examines English translation of President Xi Jinping’s speeches delivered from 2016 to 2020.The research aims to address three questions:(1)Is there interlingual explicitation of connectives in English translation of President Xi Jinping’s speeches in comparison with Chinese source texts?(2)Is there intralingual explicitation of connectives in English translation of President Xi Jinping’s speeches compared to original English speeches?(3)What are the possible causes for explicitation?To address the three questions,the study adopts a corpus-based approach.The research self-complied a bilingual parallel corpus based on Chinese source texts and English translation of President Xi Jinping’s speeches delivered between 2016 and 2020.The research also compiled an English comparable corpus consisting of English speeches delivered by heads of state and government from the United Kingdom and the United States between 2016 and 2020.Regarding interlingual explicitation in Chinese-English translation,the research investigated explicitation of English translation compared to Chinese source texts based on the behavior of four kinds of connectives(i.e.,additive,adversative,causal,and temporal connectives),annotated cases where English connectives are explicated,and calculated the explicitation rate.Another observer was asked to annotate some of the cases,and an inter-coder agreement test was conducted.Regarding intralingual explicitation,the frequency of four kinds of connectives in native and translated English speeches was examined,and log-likelihood tests were performed.Findings point towards interlingual explicitation in Chinese-English translation of President Xi Jinping’s speeches,and more than a third of connectives are explicated in English translation.The explicitation rate of causal connectives is the highest while that of temporal connectives is the lowest.The English translation of President Xi Jinping’s speeches,however,fails to suggest intralingual explicitation compared to native English texts,and four kinds of English connectives all occur more frequently in original than in translated English speeches.The study proposes that the phenomenon may be ascribed to language differences,cultural differences,cohesion,and text types.The present study examines President Xi Jinping’s speeches delivered in the recent five years and provides new evidence for the explicitation hypothesis.The study may also serve to improve China’s international discourse.