ABSTRACT
Political speeches, noted for having “the personal ‘stamp’” of the speakers (Newmark 2001: 39), usually feature the speakers’ personal preferences in expressing attitude and stance. For instance, many of the international speeches delivered by Chinese President Xi Jinping are found to frequently use the rhetorical device of metaphor to clarify China’s standpoint. While media home and abroad tend to quote Xi’s metaphors in reporting his speeches or covering related events, some news media incline to misrepresent Xi’s attitude and stance in translating, quoting and contextualising Xi’s metaphors. This chapter, drawing on the appraisal theory developed by Martin and White (2005) as the theoretical framework, compares the framing of the Chinese president and his speeches in the English discourse disseminated by the Chinese, the British and the American news media. Investigation of the appraisal and framing in different media is aimed to compare the stance signalled in Xi’s metaphors in his original Chinese speeches with those in the Anglo-American media’s translations and quotations within the context of their English news reports. The study is expected to shed light on future research of the discourse analysis relating to stance mediation in media translation and contextualisation of political speeches.
