Narrative Framing In English Translation Of The CPC Strengthening Discourse

Proposed by Mona Baker,narrative theory gives much attention to the opinion that translation is a process that realizes renarrative in a cross-linguistic context,and elaborates that translation plays a crucial role in framing political reality across time and texts.The Communist Party of China(CPC)has reconstructed abundant narratives in its long-term practice,and translation of the CPC strengthening discourse is of great significance to telling the story of the CPC’s governance to the outside world.The author builds a Chinese-English parallel corpus to analyze the English translation of the CPC strengthening discourse.Based on Baker’s narrative theory,this thesis explores the elaboration of the translation texts,focusing on the narrative types,features and framing strategies.From both synchronic and diachronic perspectives,the interaction between textual demonstration and socio-political reality has been discussed.The research findings can be concluded in four aspects.First,the diachronic exploration of narrative themes presents that the political connotations encoded in the translation narratives are evolved with the developmental reality of our Party,which demonstrate the interplay between the original context and narrative framing.Second,in terms of narrative types,both the selection of narrative materials and narrative participants are important factors influencing the framing of meta-narrative and public narrative.The meta-narrative of “the rising of the socialist state” and the public narrative of “adhering to and strengthening the Party’s leadership” have been reconstructed for the target language group.Third,when it comes to narrative features,the narrative focuses embedded in the translation in each period have been discussed,which presents genericness,temporality,relationality,narrative accrual and particularity.It can be seen that the translators not only selectively accentuate the Party’s stance,views and attitudes,but also focus on the whole process of both renarration and reception.Through the diachronic analyses,it can be found that the translated texts in socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era attempt to convey the information more clearly to English readers that the crucial task of strengthening our Party is to promote the overall effort of strengthening itself.And the reframed narratives in this period attach more focus on how to strengthen the governance capacity of officials,how to maintain good conduct and how to combat corruption.What’s more,framing the public narrative has been paid more attention by institutional translators than before.Fourth,the institutional translators adopt the following framing strategies,including temporal and spatial framing,label framing as well as selective appropriation of textual material.(1)Regarding utterances with Chinese historical and cultural characteristics,the translators tend to employ temporal and spatial framing.(2)The translators usually adopt the naming framing,one of the means of label framing,to renarrate complex political concepts of the original narratives,which promotes the comprehending of translated context.(3)Translators usually use rewriting to accentuate the original narrative in specific phase,which is effective to achieve their own narrative purposes.Obviously,it is necessary to deepen the interaction between the original context and the target language readers to optimize the dissemination and reception of the CPC strengthening discourse.It has become a trend,currently,that institutional translators should establish the dialogue between the original narratives and the translation narratives.Employing the above strategies,narrators attempt to the legitimization of the whole narrative,further reframing and emphasizing the Party’s endeavors to conduct self-reform with the times in target language group,shaping the pioneering image of Marxist ruling party being pragmatic for the people in international society.To conclude,the author believes it is feasible to expound the translation of the CPC strengthening discourse from the perspective of narratology.By elaborating the narratives of the CPC strengthening discourse in the target language,the dynamic reality and vibrant image of our Party can be reconstructed in the international community.This thesis is an attempt to prove the elaboration of postclassical narratology on the translation of the CPC strengthening discourse,and to expand the research horizon of the CPC strengthening discourse at the level of theoretical basis and language practice.