Research On The C-E Translation Of Attitudinal Resources In Political Discourse From The Perspective Of Appraisal Theory Illustrated By A Case Study Of The White Paper On Human Rights In China

The White Paper of the Chinese Government is an official report to explain the governments’ interpretation of significant issues in politics,economy,and society in current China.The White Paper on Human Rights in China is one of the themes.In the past three years,the State Council Information Office of China has issued four white papers on human rights in China.They clarify the position and attitude of the Chinese government on the relevant issues,including equal rights of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang,the protection of rights and interests of children and women,and the people with disabilities in sports availability.The government white paper belongs to political discourse,and the translator team carries out dialogue with domestic and foreign society on behalf of the country.It contains a lot of appraisal resources,especially attitudinal resources in the translation process.Based on Martin’s appraisal theory,this thesis studies the Chinese and English versions of four human rights white papers in the past three years with qualitative and quantitative data analysis.The titles of selected papers are "The Communist Party of China and Human Rights Protection," "Respecting and Protecting the Rights of All Ethnic Groups in Xinjiang," and "Moderate Prosperity in All Respects:Another Milestone Achieved in China’s Human Rights,”and "China’s Parasports:Progress and the Protection of Rights." This thesis analyzes all kinds of attitudinal resources in the selected texts.It aims to figure out the overall distribution of attitudinal resources and the possible shifts of three kinds of attitudinal resources:Affect,Judgment,and Appreciation in the process of the English translation.It also analyzes the possible factors behind those shifts.At the same time,it attempts to explore the policy position of the Chinese government on the issue of human rights in China.Through the analysis of all attitudinal resources in the white paper,I found that the positive attitudinal resources are most frequently used among the attitudinal resources.This shows that one of the main functions of attitudinal resources is to express China’s views and positions on human rights issues.Outstanding achievements and progress have been made in the cause of human rights in China,especially in Xinjiang,and protecting people with disabilities in sports availability.The White Paper uses positive attitudinal resources to stimulate Chinese people’s national pride.In addition,it presents a bright future for China’s human rights cause and encourages the people of the whole country to make more tremendous efforts the future development.In attitudinal resources,judgment resources account for the most significant proportion,appreciation resources,and affect resources account for a minor proportion.This shows that the selected white papers mainly expound on the facts and comment on the development and progress of China’s human rights cause.The study also found that among the three subtypes of attitude system,there are also many shifts:the correspondence between the source text and the target text.Among them,the affect resources in the translation are appropriately reduced,the judgmental resources are increasing than the source text,and the appreciation resources are increasing obviously.In a theoretical sense,this study enriches the study of C-E translation of political discourse,expands the application field of appraisal theory,and provides a new attempt for its application in government documents.In a practical sense,it can help people better understand the official attitude and position in the government’s white paper on human rights,but it also helps deepen people’s understanding of other government documents.