The Construction of China’s National Image Through Metaphorical Discourse in Press Conference Interpreting

Recent academic research is fundamentally reshaping our understanding of institutional translation and interpreting, moving beyond the traditional view of translators and interpreters as mere conduits of information. Instead, a growing body of scholarship, drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and corpus linguistics, posits these professionals as active ideological mediators. Their linguistic choices, far from being neutral, actively contribute to the reconstruction of political discourse, national narratives, and power dynamics. This evolving perspective is particularly evident in studies examining how China’s national image is constructed through interpreted discourse.

The Active Role of Interpreters in National Image Construction

A significant thread in this research reconceptualizes institutional translators and interpreters as active agents in shaping perceptions. Studies by Hu and Hye (2020), Pan et al. (2020), and Gu (2022) highlight how linguistic decisions in translation and interpreting can subtly yet powerfully influence how nations are perceived on the global stage.

Pan et al. (2020), employing a corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis, compared institutional translations with individual ones. Their findings revealed recurrent ideological shifts in how readers are addressed, actions are represented, and participants are identified. These shifts, the researchers argue, serve to make translations more accessible and target-audience oriented, aligning them with institutional agendas. Crucially, this study provided empirical evidence of systematic ideological mediation, demonstrating how translation functions as a tool for "presenting China to the world."

Further elaborating on this, Gu (2022) analyzed interpreter-mediated premier-meets-the-press conferences. Through a corpus-based CDA approach focusing on the keyword "develop*" and its collocations, Gu illustrated how interpreters reinforce and recontextualize China’s "development" discourse within the broader narrative of Reform and Opening-up. The study indicated that interpreters exhibited greater alignment by employing various lexical items associated with key themes like development and reform, thereby bolstering the overarching Reform and Opening-up meta-discourse. This work underscores the discursive agency of interpreters and their role in shaping sociopolitical realities, challenging the notion of interpreting as a purely neutral process. It also suggests that interpreter-mediated discourse plays a significant role in the global dissemination of China’s national image and can influence geopolitical knowledge production.

Building on these empirical foundations, Gu (2023) proposed a layered analytical framework using a mixed-methods approach integrating CDA and corpus linguistics. This framework offers a comprehensive methodological model for examining the ideological language use of translators and interpreters, addressing a perceived lack of macro-level guidance in corpus-based CDA of bilingual discourse and enhancing analytical rigor in translation and interpreting studies.

More recently, Pan et al. (2024) conducted a diachronic and contrastive study of CPC Work Reports and their English translations using corpus-based discourse analysis. Their findings revealed a distinct diachronic shift in pronoun usage in translations, constructing a "closer and more symmetrical relationship with the target readers." Additionally, they observed a shift in the use of "we + modal verbs" from expressing obligation to inclination. These linguistic changes were interpreted as reflecting broader ideological evolution and audience reorientation, demonstrating how micro-level linguistic features can index macro-level ideological change over time.

These collective studies establish several key insights: institutional translators and interpreters are not passive but active ideological mediators; ideological mediation operates across various linguistic levels and can be systematically investigated through interdisciplinary approaches; institutional contexts impose normative and ideological constraints that lead to consistent discourse production; and methodological advancements increasingly emphasize multi-layered, corpus-based, and diachronic approaches to understanding this complex phenomenon.

The Role of Conceptual Metaphors

While existing research has illuminated the role of linguistic choices in national image construction, a specific avenue that has received less attention is the impact of conceptual metaphors. As noted by Charteris-Black (2004), metaphors possess a "subliminal role in facilitating hearers to find their own hopes, expectations, and beliefs" and hold "the potential for a socially influential and ideologically grounded role in political discourse." This study aims to fill this gap by examining how conceptual metaphors, as employed in press conference interpreting, contribute to the ideological construction of China’s national image.

Conceptual Metaphor (CM) theory, pioneered by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), posits that metaphors are not merely linguistic devices but fundamental cognitive mechanisms through which we understand abstract concepts by mapping them onto more concrete, familiar experiences. This mapping, from a source domain to a target domain, allows for a deeper conceptualization of complex ideas.

Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA), an extension of CDA, has emerged as a powerful approach to uncovering the often covert intentions and underlying ideologies embedded in metaphorical language. Charteris-Black (2004) defines CMA as a method that "aims to reveal the covert and possibly unconscious intentions of language users," providing a crucial lens through which to understand the intricate relationship between language, thought, and social context, particularly in political discourse where metaphors are instrumental in shaping worldviews.

The methodology of CMA typically involves three stages, building upon Halliday’s functional linguistics and Fairclough’s CDA: identifying linguistic metaphors, generalizing to the conceptual metaphors they exemplify, and explaining how these conceptualizations shape beliefs and actions (Cameron & Low, 1999). More recent developments, such as the theoretical model proposed by Sun and Xiong (2022), integrate concepts like "conceptual key" and framing theory, building upon Entman’s (1993) definition of framing as the selection and salience of certain aspects of reality to promote a particular interpretation.

Despite the robust theoretical underpinnings of CMA, its application to conference interpreting remains relatively scarce. Most existing critical metaphor studies have focused on political discourse, such as speeches of national leaders or news coverage of political events (Wu & Li, 2023). Charteris-Black’s (2004) seminal work provided a comprehensive CMA of political discourses in manifestos and presidential speeches, categorizing metaphors into types like conflict, building, and journey metaphors. However, studies specifically examining the CMA of political discourse within translation and interpreting are fewer, with a predominant focus on metaphor schema structures within a single language, most commonly English (Wu & Pang, 2011; Wu et al., 2020; Sun & Xiong, 2022). This highlights a gap in understanding the disparities in semantic domains during cross-cultural processes and the ideologies embedded in code-switching.

Addressing this gap, Li and Li (2015) investigated "metaphorisation" as a shift in Chinese political translation through a corpus-informed textual analysis of speeches and their English translations. They demonstrated that metaphorisation can involve rendering neutral source expressions into more vivid metaphorical forms, serving to connect individual understanding with socio-cultural experience and intensify positive reception. Their findings suggested that such shifts were particularly prevalent during the Deng Xiaoping era, used to enhance rhetorical appeal and international communicative effectiveness.

Complementing this, Song and Zhang (2023) conducted a critical metaphor analysis of metaphor shifts in the English translation of a key Communist Party of China centenary speech. Employing van Dijk’s (1998) Ideological Square Model (ISM), they identified six types of metaphors. Their study revealed systematic metaphor shifts through substitution and cancellation, which were ideologically mediated by the "self-serving principle" inherent in institutional translation. Crucially, they proposed incorporating the traditional Chinese philosophy of He (harmony) into the ISM framework to better account for the mitigation of confrontational metaphors, aiming to project a firm yet non-aggressive national image. This work advanced CMA by extending its application to translation studies and demonstrating how ideological mediation operates in cross-cultural adaptation.

Corpus-Based Metaphor Analysis

The empirical foundation of conceptual metaphor theory, initially relying heavily on introspection (Shutova et al., 2013), has been significantly strengthened by the application of corpus linguistics. Charteris-Black (1999, 2004) proposed that corpora could combine quantitative and qualitative approaches, allowing researchers to measure metaphor frequency and assess the conventionalization of metaphorical senses.

Since then, numerous corpus-based critical metaphor studies have emerged, focusing either on metaphors associated with specific words (Bas, 2020) or on metaphorical expressions related to particular topics (Wu & Pang, 2011; Wang & Xin, 2019; Liu & Cai, 2023). Corpus data, through word frequency and collocation analysis, aids in discerning metaphorical expressions and explaining their semantic meanings.

Two primary approaches are employed: "corpus-driven," which explores all metaphors without predefined concepts, and "corpus-based," which searches for words or expressions related to predefined conceptual metaphors. The former may face generalizability issues due to corpus size, while the latter risks overlooking unexamined metaphors (Sun, 2013). Most studies adopt the corpus-based approach, focusing on specific words or expressions. Identifying conceptual metaphors often involves retrieving words from source and target domains. For instance, Koller (2004) identified the "business is war" metaphor by analyzing words collocated with "war" in a small corpus.

With advancements in technology, automatic metaphor annotation has become feasible. Koller et al. (2008) utilized computer-aided analysis with the UCREL Semantic Annotation System (USAS) embedded in the Wmatrix corpus analysis tool. USAS automatically assigns semantic domain tags, enabling direct searching and extraction of metaphorical expressions and minimizing manual recognition omissions (Wu & Li, 2023). This Wmatrix-based identification also focuses on source and target domains, typically involving generating a semantic domain table, retrieving concordances within top semantic domains, and applying the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) (Pragglejaz Group, 2007) to identify metaphors.

Metaphorical Cognitive Mechanisms

From a cognitive semantic perspective, image schemas, derived from embodied interaction with the physical environment, serve as the source for metaphorical mappings onto abstract domains (Charteris-Black, 2004). The "Invariance Principle" (Lakoff, 1993) suggests that schema structures are preserved in metaphorical mappings, aligning with the inherent structure of the target domain.

Tan (2016, 2023) further elaborates on the systematicity of conceptual metaphors, highlighting the "base-profile" relationship within cognitive domains. Linguistic expressions act as triggers for cognitive frames, and different profiling methods can lead to subtle semantic differences. This study adapts previous CMA models by revising the metaphor interpretation section, proposing a theoretical framework that focuses on activated frames, profiling techniques, and underlying intentions reflected by chosen cognitive domains.

Research Design and Methodology

This study addresses three core research questions:

1. Metaphor Identification: What conceptual metaphors related to "China" are present in press conference interpreting discourse from 2014 to 2023?
2. Metaphor Interpretation and Explanation: What cognitive mechanisms and ideologies underpin these metaphors, and what kinds of national images of China do they construct?
3. Interpreting Strategies: What strategies are employed for different metaphors, and what factors influence these choices?

The research data comprises the Chinese-English Press Conference Interpreting Corpus, a bilingual parallel corpus of consecutive interpreting from press conferences held after the National People’s Congress (NPC) between 2014 and 2023. This period was chosen to capture trends during a dynamic phase of China’s international engagement, encompassing initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative, evolving US-China relations, and the impact of global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The corpus includes press conferences by Premier Li Keqiang (2015-2022), Foreign Minister Wang Yi (2014-2022), and Premier Li Qiang (2023), totaling 18 press conferences. The assumption of consistent institutional interpreting norms across these events is critical to the study’s validity.

The analytical tools employed are a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Metaphor Identification utilizes the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) (Pragglejaz Group, 2007) facilitated by the Wmatrix corpus analysis tool. Metaphor Interpretation and Explanation are grounded in cognitive linguistic theories, specifically Langacker’s (1987) and Tan’s (2023) Profiling Theory, along with Entman’s (1993) Framing Theory and Sun and Xiong’s (2022) analytical framework. Wmatrix is also used to discern semantic domains of specific expressions. Interpreting strategies are categorized following Sheng’s (2021) framework and annotated using parallel corpus annotation tools in Visual Studio Code.

The metaphor identification process begins with setting the target domain of "China" (Z2 semantic domain in Wmatrix) and then applying the MIP to analyze contextual meanings of lexical units. Wmatrix’s USAS semantic tagset aids in identifying semantic domains of specific words, revealing conceptual mappings. For instance, the analysis of "firm believer" identified "firm" (O4.5 Texture) and "believer" (X2.1 Thought, belief), suggesting ontological and psychological mappings, respectively, leading to the conceptual metaphor CHINA IS A HUMAN.

A methodological limitation acknowledged is that the focus on the node word "China" may exclude metaphorical constructions that do not explicitly mention the term, such as those using pronouns or metonyms. However, this focused approach offers operational transparency and replicability.

Findings: Metaphorical Landscapes of National Image

The analysis of the corpus revealed a rich tapestry of conceptual metaphors employed in press conference interpreting, significantly shaping the portrayal of China’s national image.

Human Metaphors and the "Nation as Person" Frame

Human metaphors emerged as the most prevalent, accounting for 324 occurrences. These were categorized into three subdomains: human body, social being, and human psychology/cognition. These metaphors construct the "nation as person" frame, anthropomorphizing the state with human characteristics. This strategy makes abstract national actions more relatable by linking them to familiar interpersonal scenarios. The interpreted discourse frequently portrays China as a "helper," "coworker," or "supporter," underscoring a constructive role in the international community and a commitment to cooperation. This aligns with a broader strategy of discursive naturalization, where metaphors are adjusted for cross-cultural communication to enhance accessibility and reduce ideological distance, presenting a "non-distorted Self."

Journey Metaphors and the "Traveler" Image

Journey metaphors, with 274 occurrences, represent another significant category, primarily falling within the "Moving and Location" domain. These metaphors construct the "struggle as journey" frame, depicting collective endeavors as a shared path towards common goals. The journey metaphor implicitly conveys moral lessons, emphasizing cooperation and a bright future. In press conference interpreting, this metaphor highlights China’s leadership role in navigating global challenges and its steadfast determination to achieve shared objectives. The creation of these metaphors is influenced by shared embodied cognition of journeys and Chinese cultural values emphasizing perseverance and long-term goals, reinforcing China’s image as a confident and decisive traveler.

Building Metaphors and the "Builder" Image

Building metaphors, while less frequent (45 occurrences), contribute to the image of China as a diligent "builder" and a crucial "pillar" in the international system. These metaphors, common in both Chinese and Western contexts, emphasize cooperation, patience, and long-term progress. The building metaphor frames international relations as a collective construction project, highlighting China’s role in laying foundations and striving for greater heights in global affairs.

Ecology Metaphors and the "Guardian" Image

Ecology metaphors, though rare (12 occurrences), primarily falling within "Life and Living Things" and "World and Environment" domains, portray China as a "guardian" of the international environment. These metaphors resonate with the Chinese philosophical notion of He (harmony), advocating for coexistence and interdependence. The strategic use of such metaphors, often employing universally intelligible imagery, conveys China’s commitment to global ecological balance and sustainable development, while aligning with its ideological emphasis on harmony.

War Metaphors and the "Fighter" Image

War metaphors, appearing in the "Government and Politics" domain (7 occurrences), are used cautiously in diplomatic settings. They invoke a "war frame" to depict struggles against abstract negative concepts like poverty or pandemics, highlighting China’s resolve and courage. This portrays China as a "fearless fighter" in these battles, emphasizing determination and resilience without projecting aggression. The careful use of these metaphors reflects a broader tendency toward mitigation in institutional discourse, aiming to avoid undesirable interpretations and preserve a favorable national image.

Entertainment Metaphors and the "Performer/Player" Image

Entertainment metaphors, particularly those related to sports competition and theatrical performance (45 occurrences), construct an image of China as a dynamic and proactive "player" or "performer" on the global stage. These metaphors draw on widely shared experiences, making China’s role in international affairs more vivid and relatable. The creation of these metaphors is influenced by linguistic differences, idiomatic English structures, and China’s evolving global status, projecting an image of confidence and competitiveness.

Interpreting Strategies and Influencing Factors

The analysis of interpreting strategies revealed that Metaphor Retention is the most commonly used strategy (62.11%), followed by Metaphor Creation (21.67%) and Metaphor Transformation (16.22%). Metaphor Retention, particularly for journey and human metaphors, ensures fidelity to the source message and achieves cognitive equivalence, reflecting the preference for these conceptual metaphors in both Chinese and English discourse.

Metaphor Creation, especially in journey and human metaphors, involves adding metaphorical expressions in the target text without a direct equivalent in the source text. This strategy is employed to enhance coherence, construct narrative frames, and persuade the target audience, often reinforcing China’s image as a confident leader or a caring social being. The creation of entertainment metaphors also reflects a strategic choice to present China as an engaged and competitive participant in international affairs.

Metaphor Transformation involves shifting between conceptual metaphors, often transforming building metaphors into social action metaphors (human metaphors). This strategy subtly alters the conceptual meaning, for example, by framing competition as a child to be "fostered," thus projecting China’s image as a responsible and caring global family member.

The choice of these strategies is influenced by a combination of individual resources (cognitive, emotional, embodied experiences, linguistic knowledge) and social resources (ideological outlook, historical and cultural knowledge). Additionally, translation and interpreting norms play a crucial role. Shared embodied cognition, cultural traditions, and the need for discursive naturalization in cross-cultural communication all contribute to the selection and adaptation of metaphors to construct and disseminate a favorable national image for China. The strategic use of metaphors in press conference interpreting thus serves as a powerful tool in shaping China’s international perception, reflecting a nuanced interplay of linguistic creativity, cognitive mechanisms, and geopolitical objectives.