Keywords
English translation of the Report on the Work of the Government
Modality system
Corpus
Published : 2026-08-14
Abstract
Using Chinese–English parallel texts from the Report on the Work of the Government published between 2010 and 2019, this study investigates the reconstruction of interpersonal meaning in the English translations. The analysis adopts a corpus-based approach and takes the modality system as the main analytical framework. The findings indicate that a large proportion of modal expressions in the English translations do not have direct counterparts in the Chinese source texts, resulting in the reconstruction of modal type, modal orientation, and modal value. These expressions are introduced during the translation process. Their distribution is concentrated in inclination-based modality, implicit modal orientation, and median modal value. In concordance lines where modal expressions appear in both the Chinese texts and the English translations, the English versions present a lower degree of obligation in modal type. They also show a stronger tendency toward implicit modal orientation and a higher level of modal value than the Chinese originals.
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