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Article published In:
Translation Spaces
Vol. 8:2 (2019) ► pp.280–299

Translation, culture and politics

Implications of political slogans in Hong Kong

ORCID logo | Education University of Hong Kong
ORCID logo | Education University of Hong Kong

This article analyzes the election slogans of Hong Kong chief executives and the titles of their policy addresses since Hong Kong’s handover to mainland China in 1997, from the point of view of translation methods, cultural implications and reader responses. It finds that literal translation dominates in the translation of election slogans and policy address titles, that translated slogans and titles portray Hong Kong as a collectivist society with low power distance, and that choices between domestication and foreignization are dependent upon individual chief executives (or nominees). The article discusses the growing importance of the role of readers and proposes an inductive framework of interactive responses to represent the reality of political translation in the new era brought about by digitalization.

Keywords: political translation, translation methods, domestication and foreignization, reader response criticism, bilingual slogans
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Research objectives and questions
  • Theoretical framework
    • Translation methods
    • Cultural implications
    • Interactive response in translation
  • Methodology
  • Findings and discussion
    • Domination of literal translation
    • Cultural implications of slogans and titles
      • Low power distance
      • Collectivism
      • Domestication vs. foreignization
  • Readers’ responses and translation
  • Proposal of interactive responses in translation
  • Limitations and conclusion
  • References
Published online: 5 November 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.18009.tso
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