A multi-dimensional analysis of the representation of conference interpreters in the Chinese media

Yiwei, Du; Wang, Binhua

doi:10.1075/ts.18011.du

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 21 publications

(12 reference statements)

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“…The MDA framework has been extensively employed to investigate the genre variations of diverse discourses, including diplomatic translation (Du & Wang, 2021), academic articles (Jin, 2021), corporate reports (Bu et al, 2020), and student writing (Hardy & Friginal, 2016). The MDA framework can quantify and measure the genre variations and textual features with seven dimensions (Biber, 1988, p. 199): “Dimension 1 (Involved versus Informational Production), Dimension 2 (Narrative versus Non-Narrative Concerns), Dimension 3 (Explicit versus Situation-Dependent Reference), Dimension 4 (Overt Expression of Persuasion), Dimension 5 (Abstract versus Non-Abstract Information), Dimension 6 (Online Informational Elaboration), and Dimension 7 (Academic Hedging)”.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culture and Explicitness of Persuasion: Linguistic Evidence From a 51-Year Corpus-Based Cross-Cultural Comparison of the United Nations General Debate Speeches Across 55 Countries (1970-2020)

Shen

2022

Cross-Cultural Research

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The explicitness of expression or persuasion has been a critical subject of study in cross-cultural studies. The majority of cross-cultural comparisons in this respect, however, have been based on questionnaires and surveys. This study seeks to diversify the methods and validate the results with a corpus-based register analytical approach. Based on the United Nations General Debate Corpus (UNGDC) that comprises comparable multi-cultural speeches, a diachronic comparison (1970-2020) is made between the 2518 speeches (altogether 7,090,221 tokens) of 55 cultures from the East (East, South, and Southeast Asia) and the West (European Union, North America, and Australia) on the dimension ‘explicitness of persuasion’, a synthesized variable operationalized with 6 linguistic features, with the register analytical framework of Multi-Dimensional Analysis (MDA). The potential impacts of the political contexts on the cross-cultural gap in persuasion explicitness are tentatively discussed with the case studies on China and the United States. The results reveal significant difference between the exemplars from the East and the West on the overtness of persuasion, and the gap is generally narrowing down over the 51 years. The quantitative results provide political-setting linguistic evidence for the relevant findings of Hall, Hofstede, and Inglehart & Welzel, and the narrowing gap between cultures from the East and the West in the explicitness of expression points to an open and dynamic view of cultures. This study may offer implications for further research on the cultural styles of political persuasion.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culture and Explicitness of Persuasion: Linguistic Evidence From a 51-Year Corpus-Based Cross-Cultural Comparison of the United Nations General Debate Speeches Across 55 Countries (1970-2020)

Shen

2022

Cross-Cultural Research

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“…Sign language interpreting has become more prominent and visible in China in the past decade, with increasing awareness about accessibility and rights of the deaf and hard-of-hearing. In terms of gender, according to a recent study about media reports on interpreters in China by Du and Wang (2021), female interpreters receive much more media attention than their male counterparts. Most new headlines about interpreters included the phrase "beautiful woman" and a description of the interpreter's appearance, which is also a frequent topic in the news texts.…”

Section: Competences-practical Knowledge: What Is Interpreting?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The market for interpreting in other settings, such as legal settings (court and police) and health care settings, have also emerged in the past decade because there has a big increase of expats and foreigners working and living in China. In spite of the changes, institutional interpreters working with high-ranking officials and for high-profile political and diplomatic events are still the ones that are prominently featured in the media and published discourse on interpreting in China (see Du & Wang, 2021). For example, Ning Sun and Lu Zhang, who interpreted for the Chinese Premier’s press conferences after the annual “Two Sessions,” have become the two names of interpreters most widely featured by Chinese media in the past decade (Jiang, 2013).…”

Section: How Has the Social Practice Of Interpreting Been Represented...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In interpreting studies, professional identity and status is a topic that has received increasing attention. For example, Diriker (2009) discussed discursive construction of interpreters’ identity in the meta-discourse of the profession, including handbooks, codes of ethics, publications of professional organisations, and the media; Setton and Guo (2011) surveyed attitudes of Chinese interpreters and translators to role, status, and professional identity in Shanghai and Taipei; Zwischenberger (2011) investigated conference interpreters’ self-representation of identity through a worldwide web-based survey; and Du and Wang (2021) examined the image and identify of interpreters in China as perceived by the public media.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evolution of interpreting as a social practice in China during the past four decades. An analysis of Chinese discourse on interpreting through the lens of social practice theory

Wang

2023

Interpreting and Society

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This article examines how interpreting has evolved as a social practice in China and how it has been shaped by the changing social environment during the past four decades. Viewing interpreting as a social practice, the study employs an adapted three-element model from the social practice theory as the analytic framework. Through a qualitative thematic and content analysis of about 50 relevant articles representing the three sets of elements, which are selected from a database of Chinese articles on interpreting, and published in quality journals of Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index/Core Journals of China in the past four decades, the “competences,” “meanings,” and “materials” of the social practice of interpreting are identified and their evolution in different periods are analysed. Through an examination of the economic, socio-political, and technological developments in China during the past four decades, the evolution of interpreting in three periods (late 1970s to early 1990s, the mid-1990s to early 2000s, and 2007 to present) are identified, and the role of the changing environment in shaping the social practice of interpreting is revealed.

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“…The focus on physical appearance in conflation with professionalism is something that many women face, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, profession, or rank. It would be expected that with the advancement of women's rights, student interpreters, especially female students, would see the problematic and discriminatory nature of such a depiction, especially given the Chinese media's seemingly infatuation with "beautiful" interpreters in association with men of power (Du & Wang, 2021).…”

Section: Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender, Power, and Identity in the Interpreting Classroom

Tsai¹

2022

incontext

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Interpreting pedagogy has traditionally focused on the training of skills to fulfill market needs. Cultural Studies elements—in particular discourse on gender, identity, and power relations—have rarely been foregrounded in the teaching of interpreting, and even less so in conference interpreting programs. It is an industry-oriented pedagogical practice which has, on the more extreme end, fed into the glamorization of a profession which arguably should be more introspective on its complicity in upholding relations of power. With the aim of providing students with a more rounded education in interpreting, this article documents and discusses a preliminary attempt to introduce cultural studies discourse in a consecutive interpreting course conventionally positioned as a technical one, and one where students are commonly evaluated according to the criteria of accuracy, language, and delivery. By analyzing a real-world interpreting event—the US-China Anchorage talks—using the concepts of gender, power, and identity, the instructor attempts to counter institutional marketing claims of the profession being necessarily conducive to “intercultural communication.” Instead the analysis demonstrates that the claim masks what is in effect displays of power driven by domestic interests rather than target audience needs. It is an analytical account based on a cultural studies theoretical framework not meant to prescribe fixed methods or materials for the classroom. Instead it is offered as an example where alternative methods or materials can be introduced to initiate a line of inquiry for culturally-minded instructors who find the instrumentalist framework of accuracy, language, and delivery restrictive in explaining the dynamics between language and power. The role of the interpreter in the process of communication is thus problematized; the supposed agency the interpreter enjoys is also questioned. In fact, the analysis suggests that the higher the level of interpreting (i.e. high-level interpreting) the more the interpreter functions in service of power rather than an idealized notion of the common good, a reality that students deserve to understand.

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A multi-dimensional analysis of the representation of conference interpreters in the Chinese media

Cited by 6 publications

References 21 publications

Culture and Explicitness of Persuasion: Linguistic Evidence From a 51-Year Corpus-Based Cross-Cultural Comparison of the United Nations General Debate Speeches Across 55 Countries (1970-2020)

Culture and Explicitness of Persuasion: Linguistic Evidence From a 51-Year Corpus-Based Cross-Cultural Comparison of the United Nations General Debate Speeches Across 55 Countries (1970-2020)

Evolution of interpreting as a social practice in China during the past four decades. An analysis of Chinese discourse on interpreting through the lens of social practice theory

Gender, Power, and Identity in the Interpreting Classroom

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