Orality In Translated English-language Speeches By Chinese Leaders At Amercan Universities

Orality has generated numerous concerns in the field of linguistics in recent years.It has been examined in both second language learners' writing and spoken language,especially English learners'.However,orality in translated English discourse has not received its due scholarly attention,not to mention that in translated English-language texts.This study attempts to explore the degree of orality in translated English-language speeches by Chinese national leaders at American universities,with reference to that in those by their American counterparts at Chinese universities with the hope of providing suggestions to speech translators,achieving better international communication and making contributions to the research of political speech and orality.The corpus,which includes four translated English-language speeches delivered by Chinese leaders at American universities and five by American leaders at Chinese universities,is examined from the perspectives of writer/reader visibility,lexical measure and syntactic patterns.The similarities and differences of orality between the two groups of speeches are identified at the three levels: writer/reader visibility,lexical measure and syntactic patterns.At the same time,possible causes are attempted to be explained.The results show that the translated English-language speeches by Chinese national leaders differ significantly from the original English speeches by American leaders at writer/reader visibility,lexical level and syntactical measures.In terms of writer/reader visibility,translated English-language speeches by Chinese leaders at American universities are evidently lower than that in speeches by American leaders at Chinese universities.With regard to vocabulary frequency,the first 0-1000 and second 1000-2000 frequently used words have a higher tendency in the speeches by American leaders at Chinese universities while academic word list and off-list words are used more frequently in the translated English-language speeches by Chinese leaders at American universities.In regard to sentence and word length,syntactic measures,shorter and simpler sentences are more found in the translated English-language speeches by Chinese leaders such as passive and there-be sentences while attribute clauses and noun clauses with various guide words are used much more in the speeches by American leaders.In conclusion,compared with speeches by American leaders at Chinese universities,the degree of orality in the translated English-language speeches by Chinese leaders at American universities is lower at lexical level while higher at syntactical measures.In other words,the translated English-language speeches by Chinese leaders tend to use more complex words,lower writer/reader visibility but simpler and shorter sentence structure.The causes why the degree of orality in the translated English-language speeches by Chinese leaders differs from that in those by their American counterparts at different levels maybe lie in the different thinking modes and cultures between China and America.The findings of the study are supposed to add another dimension to the ongoing research into orality and political discourse and offer suggestions for translators of political speeches in terms of word choices and sentence structure.