Representing Chinese Premier’s discourse in international English news media: The role of translation (re)considered

This study examines the role of translation in representing a Chinese Premier’s discourse in international English-language news media, focusing on how official interpretations of political speeches are treated by news outlets. Drawing on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework, particularly the concept of “discourse representation”, and insights from Bednarek’s work on news discourse, the research analyzes three datasets: the original Chinese transcripts of Premier Li Keqiang’s remarks at the 2019 annual press conference, the official English interpretation, and reports from major English news outlets. Through combined quantitative and qualitative analyses, three types of intertextual relationships between the news quotations, official interpretation, and original Chinese text are uncovered. While many news outlets fully adopt the official interpretation, others accept it with minor semantic and/or structural adjustments. Notably, a significant number of journalists do not rely on the official interpretation but produce independent translations directly from the original Chinese. The findings suggest that journalists may have become more aware of interpreting’s mediating role, and that the voices of the interpreter and journalists frequently coexist with the Premier’s in translated direct quotations. This highlights the dual mediating roles of interpreters and journalist-translators in cross-border political communication and the importance of not treating translated political quotations as exact replicas of original statements. This paper contributes to the field by demonstrating the complex and dynamic nature of political discourse communication across genres, modes, and languages, while also providing new insights into how interpreting and journalistic practices shape political narratives across borders.