A Discourse Analysis of News Translation in China Routledge Studies in Chinese Translation Series

A Discourse Analysis of News Translation in China offers hitherto underexplored inroads into Chinese media through insider perspectives on a unique Chinese newspaper, Cankao Xiaoxia which not only is the largest circulating newspaper in China but is also unique in that its news consists entirely of stories translated from foreign news sources.

The size of the publication, the unique nature of the publication, and the view from the inside of such an organization gathered through interviews with its employees give this proposed book a highly unique perspective that will inform our understanding of the workings of Chinese media in important ways.

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 The nature of the investigation

1.2 Cankao Xiaoxi

1.2.1 Current format and key features

1.2.2 The history of the Cankao Xiaoxi

1.3 Purpose and significance

1.4 The structure and organisation

Chapter 2 News translation

2.1 Introduction

2.2 The key developments in Translation Studies

2.2.1 From equivalence to Skopos

2.2.2 From translator invisible to translator visible

2.2.3 From linguistic-oriented to cultural-oriented

2.3 Translation as manipulation

2.4 Translation in news

2.4.1 News making through translation

2.4.2 Features of news translation

2.4.3 Gatekeeping process in news translation

2.4.4 Previous studies on Cankao Xiaoxi

2.5 Summary

Chapter 3 Critical discourse analysis and the present study

3.1 Introduction

3.2 General principles of critical discourse analysis

3.3 Outline of Fairclough’s CDA and conceptualisation of power

3.4 Critical discourse analysis and news translation

3.5 Summary

Chapter 4 Methods and data

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Research questions

4.3 Performing the research

4.4 The data for the study

4.5 Methodological considerations

4.6 Summary

Chapter 5 News translation product in Cankao Xiaoxi

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Translation at the lexical level

5.2.1 Addition

5.2.2 Subtraction

5.2.3 Alteration

5.3 Translation above the lexical level

5.4 Summary

Chapter 6 Translation process and translators in Cankao Xiaoxi

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Translation as a process

6.2.1 Source news selection

6.2.2 Source news translation

6.2.3 Translation editing

6.3 Translators in the institutional process

6.3.1 Becoming a translator in Cankao Xiaoxi

6.3.2 Working as a translator in Cankao Xiaoxi

6.3.3 Targeted translators in Cankao Xiaoxi

6.4 Summary

Chapter 7 News translation practice in sociocultural China

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Historical development of Party media in China

7.3 Current situation of Party newspapers in China

7.4 The use of Party media by Chinese government

7.5 Institutional practice in Cankao Xiaoxi

7.5.1 The mission

7.5.2 The operation of censorship

7.5.3 The distribution of Cankao Xiaoxi’s output

7.5.4 Its impact on its audience

7.5.5 Moving towards digitisation

7.6 Summary

Chapter 8 Conclusion

8.1 Concluding summary

8.2 Discussion

8.2.1 Manipulation in news translation

8.2.2 Institutionalisation in news translation

8.2.3 Power relations in news translation

8.3 Directions for further research

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

APPENDIX B SUMMARY OF OCCURRENCES

APPENDIX C SAMPLE ST-TT

Appendix C-1

Appendix C-2

Appendix C-3

Appendix C-4

Appendix C-5

Appendix C-6

Appendix C-7

Appendix C-8

Appendix C-9

Appendix C-10

Appendix C-11

Index

Liang Xia received his PhD in Chinese Translation Studies from the University of Sydney in 2017. Liang has taught translation theory and practice at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the University of Sydney. His research interests include multimodality, translation studies, discourse analysis, journalism studies, and Chinese language education.