China’s official use and translation of conflict metaphor over two decades

Abstract Comprising metaphors of war and fight, the conflict metaphor, a revolutionary legacy, is not only prevalently employed in today’s state communication within China but also officially translated for the international community. Analysing the Chinese authority’s general use and translation of the conflict metaphor, this study aims to uncover cross-era variations and continuous patterns in these practices. The analysis is based on the Chinese governmental and Communist Party of China’s congressional reports and their official English-language translations from 2004 to 2023, a period that encompasses the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao era (2004–2013) and the Xi Jinping-Li Keqiang era (2014–2023). The research first quantifies the official use and translation in these reports and then, based on summary statistics of the quantified data, it reveals that the domestic use of the conflict metaphor differs substantially across the two eras but the official translation remains largely consistent. Relying on time series analysis, this study suggests that, throughout the two decades, the domestic usage in one report may be influenced by that in the immediately preceding report and is highly sensitive to contextual factors, and that the translation appears to follow a moderation mechanism, which potentially contributes to cross-era consistency.