| Qiushi,one of the most important CPC journals,serves as an authoritative ideological and theoretical medium for guiding the work of the entire Party and the country as a whole in China.Following the steps of mainstream media which began to offer their products in more foreign languages one after another in 2009,Qiushi English Edition was started on the basis of its original Chinese version under the leadership of China’s publicity administrations in an effort to promote the “going out” of China’s political discourse and to enhance the country’s discourse power on the global stage.Through over ten years’ development,Qiushi English Edition has now grown into an important platform for constructing China’s political discourse system as well as an authoritative carrier to tell China’s political “stories” and spread China’s political“voices”.Although its name might imply so,Qiushi English Edition is not a simple and complete Chinese-English translation of its original version.Instead,it is produced under the joint efforts of Qiushi Publishing House and the Compilation and Translation Bureau of the CPC Central Committee by following designed frameworks and selected subjects.Its production features “a coordinated process” involving source text selection/edition,translation and dissemination.With this understanding,this thesis seeks to answer questions and deal with problems from the theoretical perspectives of institutional translation,translation norms,framing,agenda-setting and communication effect,etc.Specifically,this thesis explores the frameworks and subjects,discusses the translation practitioners,translation norms,editing methods and translation strategies,and analyzes the target audience,dissemination channels and reception effects.Finally,a few coping strategies are proposed from the perspectives of subject consciousness,audience awareness and communication orientation to improve Qiushi English Edition for the benefit of constructing China’s international discourse.Apart from Introduction,the thesis is composed of seven chapters.In the Introduction,the research background,objects,contents,methods,theoretical frameworks and significance are elaborated.In Chapter 1,the concept of “international discourse system with Chinese characteristics” is defined.It is pointed out that the “international discourse system with Chinese characteristics” features a three-dimensional structure as it is constructed through a process of selection,translation and dissemination in a range of areas of politics,economy,culture,military and media for the purpose of “telling China’s stories well” and “spreading China’s voices well”.Besides,a comprehensive literature review is conducted by combining both qualitative and quantitative methods to discuss the status quo of related research concerning international discourse.Finally,both basic principles and practical methods are proposed to guide the research in the following chapters.In Chapter 2,Qiushi Chinese Edition,as the major source of selected texts for Qiushi English Edition,is introduced while the founding background as well as the target of the latter are discussed.It is argued that the purpose of founding Qiushi English Edition on the basis of the Chinese version which is known as the CPC Central Committee journal characterized by political and academic qualities is to share with the rest of the world how CPC governs China by disseminating the most authoritative political discourse of China,which can be regarded as an effort to enhance China’s international discourse power.It the end of this chapter,the designing features of Qiushi English Edition are also analyzed from the perspective of para-text.Chapter 3 focuses on the procedure of source text selection and explores the designed frameworks and selected subjects before and after Qiushi English Edition was revised in 2015.It is found that economic and political subjects are highlighted from2009 to 2014 while a “counter-discourse” narration style from a perspective of selfexplanation is more prominent from 2015 to 2019.In this chapter,the diplomacy subjects are also taken as an example to illustrate the positive role played by the agendasetting of international discourse system in constructing national images.Chapter 4 starts from the perspective of institutional translation and introduces the translation subject of Qiushi English Edition – the Compilation and Translation Bureau of CPC Central Committee.In addition,translation norms including target norms,procedure norms and professional norms as reflected in the process of translation are also discussed.Meanwhile,pre-translation editing methods are analyzed with specific examples in this chapter.It is found that deletion is the most-often used method in editing the source texts.No adaptation or rewriting is found to have been made upon the source texts.As for the translation strategies,the chapter focuses on key political terms,citations and metaphors collected from all Xi Jinping-authored articles published in Qiushi English Edition from 2009 to 2019 to explore the translation methods.It is finally found and pointed out that Qiushi translators,with the identity of institutional translators,follow the above-said norms closely and usually adopt free translation or domestication methods,which implies an audience-oriented translation philosophy.In Chapter 5,target audience and dissemination channels are discussed to analyze the factors which influence the communication effects of Qiushi English Edition.It is argued that academia,politicians and mainstream media from western countries constitute the major target audience of China’s international discourse system.It is found that the discourse system constructors have always been working hard on improving the journal’s communication effects in spite of their lack of experience especially in terms of dissemination channels.This chapter also investigates the citations and interpretations of Qiushi English Edition in the media reports of western countries.It is finally pointed out that the few examples of “discourse intersections”between Qiushi English Edition and media reports can tell that the influence of Qiushi English Edition is emerging even though the reception effect in general is far from ideal.In Chapter 6,proposals aiming to improve Qiushi English Edition are put forward from the perspectives of subject consciousness,audience awareness and communication orientation.As for the exiting challenges or problems in constructing China’s international political discourse with Qiushi English Edition as the example,constructive and feasible suggestions are discussed especially in terms of what to select,how to edit and how to translate.In addition,the last part of this chapter moves beyond Qiushi English Edition to discuss how to promote the “going out” of China’s discourses from the perspective of improving China’s international discourse system.Chapter 7 serves as the concluding part.It ends by summarizing the major findings as well as viewpoints in studying Qiushi English Edition.It also proposes a feasible direction for future research regarding international discourse system.Finally,it points out the limitations and possible ways for future exploration about Qiushi English Edition.The innovation of this study lies in two aspects.Firstly,it borrows a number of theoretical lenses including framing,agenda-setting,communication effect,institutional translation and translation norms from two different disciplines,namely communication studies and translation studies,to investigate and explain the producing process of Qiushi English Edition while focusing on its text selection/editing,translation and dissemination.The combination of these perspectives can contribute to the theory development in the field of international discourse system.Secondly,corresponding proposals aiming to deal with the problems that exist in the producing process of Qiushi English Edition are also put forward.These proposals can serve as references for the administrations and practitioners in constructing and improving our country’s international discourse system.However,to make the findings more persuasive,more theoretical perspectives need to be added and the methodology be improved in future research. |
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