Images of China Construed in President Xi Jinping’s Overseas Signed Articles (2014–2021): The Role of Agency

Abstract

This study explores the image of China projected in the Chinese version of President Xi Jinping’s overseas signed articles (OSAs) and their English translations regarding the review and proposal sections. A parallel corpus of 56 OSAs in two languages is established for synchronic and diachronic analysis (2014–2021). Linguistic choices in the system of AGENCY in systemic functional linguistics are focused to investigate whether an event is construed as self-engendered happening or being caused by an external Agent. The study finds that through consistent linguistic choices of demonstrating events as either actions or happenings, the images of China construed discursively in the proposal section are generally active, responsible, competent and cooperative in both versions. However, in the review, a modest, equal and inclusive images in Chinese originals of OSAs published in developed countries shift into active, competent and exclusive in their English translations. Both linguistic and contextual factors are examined to explain such shifts in language and image.