English translation of external publicity texts and national image research: corpus construction and research pathways
外宣文献英译与国家形象研究：语料建设与研究路径

摘要

以语言符号塑造中国国家形象，是提升我国软实力及增强国际话语权的必要举措。外宣翻译作为对外传播中国声音，展示国家发展成果的重要渠道，承担着国家形象塑造的使命。语料库的建设与应用能够为外宣翻译与国家形象研究提供量化研究方法，拓展理论视角，增强研究结果的客观性、科学性及解释力。本文介绍了自建“外宣文本汉英平行语料库（2011-2025）”的基本流程，包括语料采集、语料加工及语料检索等步骤，进一步从语言特征分析、形象描写、形象成因阐释、文本构建策略、话语构建策略等方面阐述了外宣文献英译与国家形象研究的基本路径，以期为基于语料库的翻译与国家形象研究提供借鉴。

Abstract

Shaping China’s national image through linguistic symbols is a necessary measure for enhancing China’s soft power and strengthening its international discursive capacity. As an important channel for communicating China’s voice and presenting its development achievements to the outside world, the translation of external publicity texts undertakes the mission of national image construction. The construction and application of corpora can provide quantitative research methods for studies on external publicity translation and national image, broaden theoretical perspectives, and enhance the objectivity, scientific rigor, and explanatory power of research findings. This article introduces the basic procedures involved in constructing a self-built Chinese-English Parallel Corpus of External Publicity Texts (2011-2025), including corpus collection, corpus processing, and corpus retrieval. It further outlines the main research pathways for studies on the English translation of external publicity texts and national image from the perspectives of linguistic feature analysis, image representation, interpretation of image formation, textual construction strategies, and discursive construction strategies, with the aim of offering methodological reference for corpus-based research on translation and national image.