Parallel Analysis

Parallel Example One

我们中国人从此站起来了。 (Deng 1984a)

(LT)5 We Chinese since then stood up.

(OT)6 Ever since then the Chinese people have stood on their feet. (Deng 1984b)

中国人民从此站起来了。 (Jiang 1999a)

(LT) The Chinese people since then stood up.

(OT) Hence the Chinese People stood up. (Jiang 1999b)

中国人民从此站起来了。 (Hu 2009a)

(LT) The Chinese people since then stood up.

(OT) At that moment, the Chinese people stood up. (Hu 2009b)

All of the three speakers have mentioned their predecessor, the first-generation leader Chairman Mao as a departure to trace the history of the PRC and identify the CPC’s contribution in the state-building. The ST extracts converge in meaning and style, therefore diachronic changes in the STs and TTs would be of immense interest to this

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LT refers to literal translation provided by the author.

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study which focuses on the transformation of discourse along the socio-political trajectory.

In terms of the ST expressions, Jiang and Hu’s speeches are the same, while Deng makes a distinction at the initial position of the sentence where 中国人民 (zhongguo renmin/the Chinese people) used in the latter two sentences has been changed into 我

们 中 国 人 (women zhongguoren/we Chinese). The appositive construction is

apparently composed of an inclusive pronoun we and a less formal referent Chinese. It conveys a more colloquial tone and emotional appeal to the Chinese audience and gives the impression that the speaker intends to position himself amid his people and share their feelings. Despite the difference in the STs, the 1984 speech converges with the latter two in translation regarding this point. All of them are translated as the Chinese people. This phenomenon points to a tendency in translation to stay neutral and tone down the emotive language. To put this in context, the shift of the first-person to third-person angle hints that the translators seek to project an objective and formal outlook of the speaker and his country in front of the external audience.

What captures greater attention is the divergent versions in translation. All the three TTs have foregrounded the time adverbial 从此 (congci/since then) which could be functionally viewed as conjunctive adjunct (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 81). The thematised adjuncts show the translators’ intention to relate to the preceding text and set up more explicit cohesion to let in the emotionally-laden and metaphorically-invested sentence that the Chinese people have become independent.

Of more interest is that there are three different renderings of the same ST term 从此 (congci/since then). In the 1984 speech, it is accentuated by a modal adjunct ever

indicating the absolute usuality of the latter proposition. This textual emphasis is in line with the thematised operation of this element in an attempt to highlight the cohesive marker. In the 1999 speech, a semantic shift in the rendering of this word into hence adds a hint of causal relationship into the temporal lineation. It seems to

suggest that there would not have been the national independence without Mao’s painstaking effort to found the country. This variation in translation can be seen as a subtle manipulation to accord with the broader theme of the discursive event which is to stress the leading position of the CPC and sustain social stability. In the 2009 version, at that moment strikes an informal note and invokes a narrative tone, which seems to suggest that the speaker is starting to narrate the history of his country to the people. The message underlying this conversational and sedate style seems to be that despite the challenges and difficulties ahead; the country is settled into a relatively steady phase of development and is supposed to carry on in the (politically) right direction.

Another change in the TTs involves the translations of 站起来 (zhan qi lai/stand up) at the end of each sentence. It is distinctively couched as stand on their feet in the 1984 speech in comparison with the other two speeches. The emphasis on on their feet evokes a down-to-earth image of the people who had the three mountains on their backs thrown off and could stand in a real sense. With its revolutionary success in 1949 the CPC claimed itself as the savior to have thrown the three mountains off the people’s back, which has since then through various channels become embedded into the public discourse. This image was thus integrated into the collective cognition which has been constantly moulded by the pervasive Chinese communist discourse. On the one hand, it seems that the translators go a step further to activate the image with a view to conveying a unique sense of the Chinese political discourse to target readers. On the other hand, the accentuated tone suggests a sense of pride in the CPC’s nation building, giving slight traces of the emotionally-charged style of the early Chinese political discourse in conformity to the ubiquitous propaganda campaign, which could be seen as an undisguised mode of thought management.

As time goes by, the 1999 and 2009 speeches tend to opt for an unmarked phrase

stand up, reflecting an unobtrusive lifelike experience which the audience may find easier to empathise with. This resounds with Brady’s (2011: 1) observation that in

recent years China has made efforts in updating its traditional methods of mind control by borrowing Western patterns of mass persuasion. This change of wording suggests a tendency in the domain of political and diplomatic translation to be more adaptive to target knowledge configurations and put more emphasis on the interaction with the target schematic structures.

Parallel Example Two

全国各族同胞，包括港澳同胞、台湾同胞和海外侨胞 (Deng 1984a)

(LT) the compatriots of all our zu7，including the compatriots in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and those residing abroad

(OT) the people of all our nationalities，including our compatriots in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and those residing abroad (Deng 1984b)

全国各族人民和海内外爱国同胞 (Jiang 1999a)

(LT) the people of all zu in the country and all patriotic compatriots at home or overseas

(OT) the people of all ethnic groups in China and all patriotic compatriots at home or overseas(Jiang 1999b)

全国各族人民和海内外爱国同胞 (Hu 2009a)

(LT) the people of all zu in the country and all patriotic compatriots at home or overseas

(OT) people from all ethnic groups in the country and patriotic compatriots from home and abroad (Hu 2009b)

This set of sentences involves a strategy of naming, a typical aspect of political discourse (Wilson 1990; Beard 2000; Kang 2007; Molek-Kozakowska 2010). It is a crucial linguistic device to identify how the referents are described and from which perspective the speech writer is describing them. In the light of translation, it is also of interest to investigate how these terms are reconstructed in the target language. In the

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Zu: as in min zu, it is a Mandarin lexical term, referring to the nationalities or ethnic groups that are considered to form the whole Chinese nation. Due to the changing practices of translation in different periods, this term remains untranslated in the English translations to avoid potential confusion.

STs, the basic referent the Chinese people living at home and abroad has been expressed differently in the 1984 speech as compared with the latter two. The 1984 speech refers to the entire people as 同 胞 (tong bao/compatriots) and further specifies each integral part of it, while both the 1999 and 2009 speeches choose to refer to the Chinese people living in China as 全国各族人民 (quanguo gezu renmin/the people of all zu in the country) and those living abroad as 海内外爱国同

胞 (haineiwai aiguo tongbao/all patriotic compatriots at home or overseas). One obvious reason is that in 1999 Hong Kong has already returned to China and Macau was about to be handed over in December so there is no need to specify the two regions in the latter two speeches. In what follows, it would be slightly obtrusive and inappropriate on the ceremonial occasion to single out the thorny Taiwan issue, which might account for the absence of 台湾人民 (tanwan renmin/Taiwan people) in the latter two speeches. Another change in the STs is that the 1999 and 2009 speeches use

人 民 (ren min/people) other than 同 胞 (tong bao/compatriots) to address the internal Chinese people, which appear less emotive and more sober and objective. It can be viewed as a departure from the motivational style of the revolutionary language in the earlier communist discourse.

In the three TTs, the changes in translating the lexis 族 (zu) capture most attention.

族 (zu) is a familiar notion in the Chinese public discourse as the nation is constantly cast in the idea that China is a big family consisting of 56 zu and that all the peoples in the 56 zu are sons and daughters of the motherland. Cognitively 族 (zu) serves as an emotive bond to unify public thoughts and strengthen national unity. Given the rich socio-cognitive values the term is endowed with, it is inevitable that it has been given intensive attention as such in the domain of translation.

族 (zu) was first rendered as nationality in the 1984 speech and changed into ethnic group in the other two. Nationality is basically a legal concept that refers to one’s country of origin, therefore it would be potentially confusing to put that a country consists of many nationalities. Moreover, it does no good to conjure up the image of a

unified country, a message that the Chinese authorities constantly seek to get across. In contrast, ethnicity is culturally oriented and refers to a group of people with common cultural or religious traits. Despite the semantic compatibility, this word seems to have a negative racist connotation, which may account for the lexical adaptation into ethnic group. Tailored to the Chinese context, this phrase is consistent with the endorsed concept of China as a culturally diverse nation, and helps to project a positive image at the diplomatic front. This instance has expressly illustrated the mainstream role translation plays in the discursive reconstruction of political discourse.

Another lexical change in the TTs involves the translation of 海内外 (hai nei wai/inside and outside the sea). In the Chinese culture, sea was originally conceived as the borderline between China and foreign countries, therefore 海内 (hai nei/inside the sea) is used to refer to China and 海外 (hai wai/outside the sea) to foreign countries. This ancient notion has been carried over into modern Chinese which is characterised with the interspersed use of ancient rhetoric. This linguistic pattern would be particularly favoured in the rhetorically invested commemorative speech whose primary aim is to inspire and persuade. The 1999 TT was predominantly influenced by the original token sea and represented the image in the translation, therefore overseas was used. However, the cognitive and cultural frame of the target audience can hardly be identical to that of the source. Specifically when it comes to referring to going outside one’s country, due to the semantic limitation incurred by the concept of sea, overseas is not as widely used as abroad in the target language. Therefore in the 2009 speech the word abroad was restored. In this sense, the changes in translation appear to indicate the development of political translation towards an informed and consultative stage, suggesting a growing tendency that target readership is more effectively accommodated.

Parallel Example Three

三十五年前，我国各族人民的伟大领袖毛泽东主席，在这里庄严宣布了中华人民

共和国的成立。 (Deng 1984a)

(LT) Thirty-five years ago, the great leader of the people of all our nationalities of our country, Chairman Mao Zedong, here solemnly announced the founding of the People's Republic of China.

(OT) Thirty-five years ago Chairman Mao Zedong, the great leader of the people of all our nationalities, solemnly proclaimed here the founding of the People's Republic of China.(Deng 1984b)

五十年前的今天，毛泽东主席在这里向世界宣告了新中国的诞生。 (Jiang 1999a)

(LT) Fifty years ago today, Chairman Mao Zedong here proclaimed to the world the birth of New China.

(OT) Fifty years ago today, Chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed here to the world the birth of New China. (Jiang 1999b)

毛泽东主席在这里向世界庄严宣告了中华人民共和国的成立。 (Hu 2009a)

(LT) Chairman Mao Zedong here solemnly declared to the world the founding of the People's Republic of China.

(OT) It was here that Chairman Mao Zedong solemnly declared to the world the founding of the People's Republic of China. (Hu 2009b)

All the three speeches have mentioned Mao’s declaration of the PRC as a starting point for the recollection of the CPC’s historic achievements. In the STs, the constructions are similar in style and content. The focus is mainly on the shifts between the STs and TTs and changes in the TTs. A translation shift is involved in the 1984 speech where 宣布 (xuan bu/announce) was rendered as proclaim. Although there is not much significant difference between the two, it would make some sense to suggest that the latter is more officially and formally registered and implies that the message is intended to spread to the world. The shift in translation seems to have a subtle effect on Jiang and Hu’s speeches in which a slightly different verb 宣告 (xuan gao/declare/proclaim) has been opted for. This example is tentatively indicative

of the role translation plays in interacting with ST production, where translation is integrated into the discursive reconstruction of the original texts on the grounds that the TT production stems from the same culture as that of the ST. Under these circumstances, the traditional view that ST and TT productions are separate and independent comes under challenge given the increasing interdependence between the two categories of discursive activities in the Chinese political context. The production of the Chinese political discourse is thus in a more responsive position to accommodate the subtle changes in its translations.

In terms of the syntactic structure, the 2009 TT gives more salience in its special organization of the clause as message. The combination of thematic and special informational choice is defined as theme predication in the domain of functional grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 95-98). In this structure, the focus of information is explicitly foregrounded before the main proposition. Specifically, the circumstantial adjunct here is highlighted in a way to direct the audience’s attention to it. In connection to the co-text that Hu declared that he was here delivering the speech to commemorate the founding of the 60th anniversary of China, the implication would be that he was literally standing on par with the privileged founder Mao. The textual manipulation would be viewed as a tentative attempt to set up additional political legitimacy for Hu in line with the motifs underlining the speech event.