ABSTRACT
Adopting the concept of ‘domestication’ introduced by Lawrence Venuti and the approach to economic rhetoric developed by Donald McCloskey, this paper analyses a particular genre, ‘economics prose’, produced by Hong Kong economists, which is then mainly targeted at non-economic-professional, or lay, Chinese readers. The content of this ‘economic prose’ is largely borrowed from Western mainstream economic ideologies. Hong Kong economists either directly translate or indirectly rewrite Western economic concepts and thoughts into Chinese. Yet in both cases, by comparing their English and Chinese writings, it is not difficult to see that the strategies of their ‘translations’ (in a broad sense) can be termed as ‘domestication’. The art of persuasion that they have employed in their Chinese writings, particularly the use of metaphors of martial arts fiction, as well as the charm of historical precedents and authority, has created a fictional world of economics which attempts to convince their readers of the virtues of so-called laissez-faire economics. Though purporting to convey serious information or ‘scientific facts’, their ‘economic prose’ is simply casual articulation which does not encourage readers to engage in any serious evaluation. We need also to add the favoured background that translation of Western economic ideology — as an antithesis to communism — has invoked in the particular geopolitical
and historical conditions of Hong Kong. This, of course, makes the spread of negative perceptions of communist China easier to accomplish.
