Narrative Framing In News Translation

In 2005,FTChinese,Financial Times' Chinese language online publication,was launched in Beijing.With Financial Times's international team of professional journalists,this leading business news publication has presented its Chinese readers with timely authoritative news reports and in-depth comments.It is a must-read for Chinese business community.Many of its news reports are selected from Financial Times and translated into Chinese.Due to the differences between Chinese ideology and the ideology of the western world,Financial Times,as with many other western media,casts China in a negative light.Thus,the translated news of FTChinese plays a crucial role in shaping political conflicts.This gives rise to two questions.One,how does translation influence political conflicts?Two,are there any measures or strategies that are at disposal of translators to change narratives?Mona Baker,British scholar of translation studies,combines translation studies with sociological and communications theories.She introduced her narrative theory in detail in the book Translation and Conflict:A Narrative Account in 2006.She thinks that narratives are omnipresent throughout our communication activities.It does not merely reflect reality but also construct reality since it can guide people's behaviors.Translation in the narrative approach is understood as a form of re-narration.The act of actively accentuating or suppressing narratives is called framing.Drawing on the Somers,Gibson and Bruner's typologies of narrativity and narrative features,Baker proposes four framing strategies,which are temporal and spatial framing,framing by labeling,selective appropriation of textual material and repositioning of participants.Her perspective transformed people's view on translation.Translation is not a simple language-transferring communication-facilitating process.It helps people better understand the important roles of translators and interpreters.It also disillusions translators and interpreters who believe that translation and interpreting is neutral.They must not translate narratives in a detached manner.The thesis chooses the translated news reports on FTChinese published in the second half of 2016 as the object of a case study.It examines how translators of FTChinese change narratives with Baker's four framing strategies.The case study demonstrates that the four framing strategies have been employed.At the same time,it also discovers the limitations of the theory.First,the overlap and interdependence of framing strategies make it hard for translators and interpreters to put them into actual practice,though Baker's perspective is unique and precious.Second it is difficult to pinpoint how narratives change the complex world since they are dynamic and very fluid.