Résumés
Abstract
This paper begins with an account of a high-profile political speech event centring on a Chinese slangy expression ‘[we] bu zheteng’ when it was used by the then Chinese President Hu Jintao in a 2008 speech, of which the Chinese government preferred a zero-translation despite the existing translations and various choices already available in Chinese-English dictionaries. The paper then discusses from the perspective of grammatical metaphor how and why an innocent-looking pragmatic usage has given rise to a series of ideologically charged debates over its translation. To that end, the paper conducts a critical review of grammatical metaphor, a key Systemic Functional Linguistic concept in describing congruence-to-metaphor evolution of language. Our cross lingual observation of this translation-related speech event enables us to argue that different textual means of presentation/concealment of human participation in transitivity are key to accounting for the discursive function of grammatical metaphors and to discerning the “chain” between congruent and metaphorical expressions. In the light of concealment of human participation in the transitivity process, the paper also observes that it is the association between the vague self-referencing ‘we’ and the adverse actions/situations, that is, (causing) commotions, alluded to by the term zheteng that has made a semantically explicit translation ideologically less desirable. As such, this operation of zero translation appears to be an instance of discursive manoeuvre rather than a sign of semantic impasse. To substantiate its theoretical claim, the paper relates the case to some similar political speech events in the world’s political arena and demonstrates how, prompted by this functional awareness of grammatical metaphors, one may devise a translation with better informed sensitivity to identity presentation/concealment in discourse.
Keywords:
- transitivity,
- grammatical metaphor,
- political translation,
- textual accountability
Résumé
Cet article commence par revenir sur un discours très médiatisé de Hu Jintao prononcé au cours de son mandat de président en 2008 et dans lequel il employait l’expression argotique chinoise « [nous] bu zheteng », que le gouvernement chinois préféra ne pas traduire malgré les traductions existantes et les diverses options proposées par les dictionnaires chinois-anglais. Puis, cet article cherche à comprendre, sous l’angle de la métaphore grammaticale, pourquoi et comment cette expression, si pragmatique et dénuée d’arrière-pensée que fût son usage, a pu susciter toute une série de débats sur le plan idéologique au sujet de sa traduction. Pour ce faire, cet article réexamine le concept de métaphore grammaticale, notion-clé de la linguistique systémique fonctionnelle pour la description de l’évolution du langage de la congruence vers la métaphore. L’observation en traduction de cet élément de discours nous permet d’avancer que différents moyens textuels de présentation/dissimulation d’une participation humaine dans la transitivité sont cruciaux pour rendre compte de la fonction discursive des métaphores grammaticales et pour distinguer le « chaînon » entre expressions métaphoriques et expressions congruentes. À la lumière de la dissimulation de la participation humaine dans le processus de transitivité, cet article remarque également que c’est l’association du vague auto-allusif « nous » et des actions/situations défavorables, c’est-à-dire (causant du) désordre, suggérées par le terme zheteng qui a rendu une traduction explicite d’un point de vue sémantique idéologiquement moins souhaitable. Aussi le choix de ne pas traduire semble-t-il être un cas de manoeuvre discursive plutôt qu’un signe d’impasse sémantique. Afin de confirmer notre hypothèse théorique, l’article fait le lien entre ce cas et d’autres éléments de discours politique présentant des similitudes sur la scène politique internationale et démontre comment, la conscience fonctionnelle des métaphores grammaticales aidant, il est possible de concevoir une traduction mieux pensée en termes de sensibilité pour identifier la présentation/dissimulation dans le discours.
Mots-clés :
- transitivité,
- métaphore grammaticale,
- traduction politique,
- transparence textuelle
Parties annexes
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