A Study On The English Translation Of China’s First White Paper On UN Peacekeeping Operations From The Perspective Of New Rhetoric

In September 2020,China issued its first White Paper on UN peacekeeping operations,China’s Armed Forces: 30 Years of UN Peacekeeping Operations,in multilingual versions,which is the first White Paper on the theme of peacekeeping in the world.The publication of the White Paper marks China’s active move in agenda-setting in the international community.Based on the theories of identification and centrality of audience in New Rhetoric,this thesis focuses on the Chinese and English versions of the White Paper and attempts to analyze the translation strategies and techniques adopted for its communicative purpose.Rhetoric and translation have the communicative and purpose-oriented features in common.Translation can be seen as a rhetorical act,and the translated text forms a rhetorical discourse.Consequently,translation studies can be conducted from the perspective of rhetoric.Compared with Classical Rhetoric,New Rhetoric aims to achieve identification and focuses on audience.Kenneth Burke’s theory of identification summarizes three accesses to identification: sympathy,antithesis,and inaccuracy.Cha?m Perelman’s theory of centrality of audience divides audience into the universal audience,the single interlocutor(i.e.,audience of one),and the self audience.Guided by these two theories,the thesis finds that the English translation of the White Paper on UN peacekeeping operations(UNPKOs)presents the following features in information selection,translation strategies and techniques.(1)The presentation of the information of ST deserves consideration from the standpoint of the TT readers.The strategy of literal translation is adopted to replicate ST material’s emotional resonance in TT readers.In contrast,the strategy of free translation bridges the Chinese and Western cultural gap and reconstructs identification by sympathy in TT.The tactical use of translation techniques like omission can blur an act’s agent and promote the identification by inaccuracy in TT readers.(2)From the perspective of the universal audience,general rules and reasoning in the ST should be rendered to TT with the strategy of literal translation.From the angle of the single interlocutor of the English translation,TT should adopt the translation strategy of adaptation to accommodate the aesthetic preference and TT norms.From the angle of the self audience,i.e.,ST producer,TT should adopt the strategy of literal translation to adhere to China’s political stance and promote the construction of China’s diplomatic discourse system.This thesis consists of six parts.The introduction briefs the background,the significance,and the structure of the thesis.The second part presents the literature review.The third part introduces the theoretical framework of the thesis,focusing on the concepts related to the theories of identification and centrality of audience in New Rhetoric.Carrying out the source text analysis of the White Paper,the fourth part examines its extratextual factors and intratextual factors,including linguistic and rhetorical features,and highlights the elements of interest and translation difficulties in the new rhetorical perspective.The fifth part analyzes the information selection,the translation strategies and techniques employed in the English translation of the White Paper and discusses the implications for future translation from the perspective of the identification and the centrality of audience.The sixth part is the conclusion.