Studies In The Theories Of New Rhetorical Situation In China's International Communication

With the development of globalization and increased intensity of internationalexchanges, how to avail ourselves of the media to create a positive national image andconsequently to enhance the soft power of our country has become the major concernin our international communication. In this study, we focus on the editing andtranslating of soft news, an indispensable part of international communication whichhas interestedness and human interest as its chief news values.Unfortunately, relevant studies on soft news adaptation have not received enoughattention they deserve, in terms of not only the number of publications but also theperspectives adopted. Up till now, only five theories have been applied, with theSkopos Theory the most popular one. All the papers exclusively aim at justifying themethods of adaptation used in the translation process, such as addition, deletion, etc.,yet no concrete workable strategies have been suggested. What's worse, those studieshave failed to take full consideration of the news values and communicationeffectiveness of soft news. Therefore, centering on communication effects and basedon theories in New Rheteric, we endeavor to construct appropriate rhetoric situationso as to solve the three major problems existing in soft news editing and translating inour international communication, namely, the lack of audience awareness, theinsufficiency in its softness and the disappointing level of credibility.Application oriented, this study probes systematically into the construction of thethree main factors (audience, news values and rhetoric authority) in the rhetoricsituation for soft news from the perspectives of meaning, motive, values, media anddialectics, etc. All the examples in this study are selected from state-run soft newsmagazines to illustrate the existing problems in the process of editing and translating.The translation strategies proposed are based on the combination of data analysis andapplication of theories in New Rhetoric.The originality of this study is manifested in the following aspects: 1) makingcommunication effects the core of soft news edition and translation and emphasizing news values such as intestedness and human interest; 2) recognizing the significanceof rhetoric situation theories for enhancing comprehensively the communicationeffects of soft news in our international communication, identifying the three majorcomponents in the situation in question, and proposing workable strategies forbringing the subjective initiative of audience into play, demonstrating news values andestablishing translator's rhetoric authority; 3)introducing theories in New Rhetoric,especially those on meaning, vales, power, and argumentation, as theoretic support toguide the process of editing and translating; 4) enlarging the translation units fromwords and sentences to the whole passage and even beyond, thus giving translatorsmore freedom in structuring, material selection, and argumentation, etc.We apply theories of New Rhetoric to construct the rhetoric situation withKenneth Burke's enlarged situation theory as basis. Burke's rhetoric situation theoryextends the range of rhetoric discourse significantly so much so that"effectiveliterature could be nothing but rhetoric"(Golden 313). Our assumption that theconstruction of suitable rhetoric situation based on New Rhetoric can effectively solvethe above three problems and enhance the communication effectiveness of the editionand translation of soft news is based on the following considerations: firstly, soft newsbelongs to rhetoric discourse, which is closely related to and also an indispensiblecomponent in rhetoric situation. Secondly, appropriate rhetoric situation can help thetranslator assume correct rhetoric stance, a proper balance among the availablearguments about the subject itself, the interests and peculiarities of the audience, thevoice and the implied character of the speaker. Thirdly, sharing the same origin withcommunication studies, New Rhetoric is characterized as interdisciplinary andcognitive, with an emphasis on cooperation, values and social behavior. All these makeit eligible for our theoretical framework, providing theoretical support in the processof translation.It is noteworthy that rhetoric situation is a large concept and consists of manyfactors other than the three studied in this paper. We sincerely hope that with the development of relevant research, more and more factors will be brought to theforeground.