Interpreting as an influencing factor on news reports: A study of interpreted Chinese political discourse recontextualized in English news

ABSTRACT

This article investigates interpreting as a factor that influences recontextualized political discourse in news reports; this is achieved by examining the mode and content of its representation and the acceptance of interpreter deviations. The aim is to explore how interpretations are represented in news reports and the potential effects that the mediation of interpreting may have on media understandings of political discourse. The article uses data from videos of interpreting for the Chinese government at eight joint press conferences, and relevant quotations and comments in 85 news reports. The analyses reveal that most English-language news reports rely heavily on the interpreted versions, as evidenced by a larger percentage of direct discourse quoting the actual words of the interpreters and by the acceptance of interpreter deviations. Such representations in the news have substantially influenced positive and negative portrayals of the Chinese government. This paper offers a new dimension for the analysis of political discourse from the perspective of interpreting studies, and enriches the practice of interpreting by including news report data. In addition, it encourages reflection on the interpretation of culturally loaded expressions for a better reception from the international audience.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese political discourse
• interpreting for government press conferences
• English news reports
• recontextualization
• influencing factors

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Lingqian Zheng got her MA degrees in translation and interpreting from Xiamen University and University of Westminster in 2009. She is now a lecturer at Minjiang University and PhD candidate in interpreting studies at Sichuan University. Her research interests include media translation and interpreter training.

Wen Ren is professor of translation and interpreting studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University. Her research interests include sociology of translation/interpreting, ethics and power in translation/interpreting, and multilingualism. Her publications include The Liaison Interpreter’s Subjectivity Consciousness (Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2011), an edited volume titled Interpreting in the Age of Globalization – Proceedings of the 8^th National Conference and International Forum on Interpreting (Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2011), and over 60 papers.

Notes

1 Access World News is a database providing the full texts of over 8,000 types of newspapers, news agency reports and transcripts of television and radio programmes.

2 ProQuest Newspaper is a database providing the full texts of three newspapers in the United States, namely the New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.

3 The size of ‘segments’ in this paper is determined by the structure and length of quotations in the news; thus, a segment can be a unit longer or shorter than a sentence.

4 We include a number after newspaper abbreviations when there is more than one report about the same press conference by the same news institution.

5 These ‘three principles of closeness’ (Huang, 2004, p. 27) are ‘reflecting the reality of China’s development, catering to the demand of foreign readers/audiences for information from China, and adapting to their ways of thinking.’

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fujian Provincial Social Science Foundation [grant number FJ2016C155]; Center for International Communication Studies [grant number 2017TSA02/2].