Author(s)

Yufeng Sun^1*, Sang Hu², Lifang Wei³, Jiahui Wu¹, Qiannuo Wang¹

¹School of Humanities and International Studies, Zhejiang University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Hangzhou, China.
²Foreign Studies College, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China.
³School of Foreign Languages, Shaoxing University, Shaoxing, China.

This study centers on, with the aid of Kenneth Burke’s Rhetoric “Identification”, a rhetorical analysis of the English works by Chinese leaders throughout three different periods (1960-2017), namely Selected Works of Mao Tse Dung (Volumes 1-5), Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (Volumes 1-3) and The Governance of China (Volumes 1-2) published by Foreign Languages Press via Docuscope3.40. The English translation of Chinese political discourse in these three periods (1961-1965; 1984-1994; 2012-2017) displays a high degree of commonalities, of which Institutional Register, Academic Register, and Reporting rank the most elevated, yet Personal Relations, Interactivity, Narrative, Emotion, and Directives the lowest. Therefore, it is suggested that the translator adopts rhetorical appeals of “Identification by sympathy” and “Identification by antithesis” to relate with the rhetorical audience. The rhetorical characteristic of The Governance of China I and II in the new era distinctively exhibit a higher percentage of Institutional Register and Academic Register. Still, the lower ratio in Reasoning, Emotion, and Subjective Register demands “Argumentation” and the rhetorical appeal of “Identification by inaccuracy” to achieve the communicative effects of the English translation of Chinese texts with a political agenda.

Chinese Political Discourse Translation, Identification, Rhetorical Features, Argumentation, Rhetorical Appeals

Sun, Y. , Hu, S. , Wei, L. , Wu, J. and Wang, Q. (2025) More Target-Oriented? The Rhetorical Effects of the English Translations of Chinese Political Discourse. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 15, 339-357. doi: 10.4236/ojml.2025.152019.