Livros Brancos Iridescentes: Políticas da Tradução na República Popular da China

Abstract

The present dissertation analyses how translations influence the constitution of the White Papers of China, from their Chinese language version to their English language version. The Author articulates this general objective with a reflection on the challenges, reach and limitations of those publications by the People's Republic of China (PRC). Starting from the theoretical-methodological provocations of Translation Policies in International Relations, the author considers the processes of deconceptualization and transformation that occur in translations, to question how they influence the interpretation of references from Chinese culture and philosophy, present in the Chinese language version of the White Papers selected for analysis, published on September 26, 2023. From this, she observed that translation influences the constitution and content of the PRC's corresponding White Papers. The main question of this dissertation is: How do these Chinese references, present in the Chinese language version of the selected White Papers, occur in their English translation? The research methodology consists in documentary research, associated to the analysis of concepts translations, sustained by bibliographic research in contemporary references on Chinese philosophy, researchers focused on the history of China from the 19th to the 21st centuries, and in theoretical-ideological productions linked to the Chinese Communist Party. As result, the author noticed that the White Paper in Chinese language is theoretically based on the Chinese political-cultural tradition principles, as revisited in Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, and upon this the proposal for humanity with a shared future is presented; however, in the English translated version, this theoretical basis does not come through, due the processes of deconceptualization and transformation that concepts and notions of Chinese philosophy undergo. As a contribution to the field, the author highlights the importance of the production of knowledge in China, both ancient and contemporary, which unfolds in its political-cultural tradition, and of the analysis of intercultural translations, in International Relations, by presenting methodological possibilities of analysis little explored in qualitative research from the area, and constituting a new typology of data classification, the translations of concepts, in this research.