The image of the Chinese government in the English translations of Report on the Work of the Government: a corpus-based study

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing on a corpus-based methodology and Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis, this article examines the image of the Chinese government constructed in the English translations of Report on the Work of the Government released by the Chinese government from 2000 to 2021. The analysis reveals that the Chinese government is shaped as enterprising and industrious, but having a large power distance from the general public, which is evidenced by the discursive use of high-frequency content words, associated with high-frequency collocations with “we”. It is also constructed as one that is equable, resolute and sensible by the frequent use of median-value modal verbs in the English translations of Report on the Work of the Government. This article ultimately argues that the English translations of Report on the Work of the Government are impacted by the translators’ role as institutional translators and the norms of translating Chinese political texts.