Translating Political Speeches Between English And Chinese: Genre Analysis Perspective

Taking a genre analysis perspective, this thesis presents an analysis of politicalspeeches of a corpus of40presidential speeches involving the Chinese state leadersand their US counterparts.The present study divides the sample speeches into three sections and identifiesthe differences in moves and steps in these speeches. Three moves have beenidentified, namely, move1, speech initiation; move2, presenting the speech and move3,ending the speech. On the one hand, this study it is found that there are differences inthe sequence of the moves and the choice of different steps to achieve theircommunicative purposes, and Chinese president’s speeches consist of more moves andhave a complete structure than US president’s speeches. Through comparison of themoves and steps, this thesis aims to uncover the differences and similarities betweenChinese and English speeches. On the other hand, this study explores the implicationsof genre-based analysis on speech writing and translation.This study of Chinese and English political speeches from the perspective ofgenre analysis provides a new research dimension for translation studies. It alsoallows a closer look at diplomatic talk to explore political differences in a positiveway to smooth out socio-political and ideological discrepancies that often divideprominent political figures.