A Corpus-based Study on Metaphorical Modes of China’s Diplomatic Discourse and Corresponding French Translation Strategies —— Taking the Speeches Made at the Regular Press Conferences of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2020 to 2022 as an Example

Diplomatic metaphor is an important part of China’s diplomatic discourse system. The study of translation strategies of diplomatic metaphors is helpful in improving the communication effect of diplomatic discourse and is of great significance to the international communication of China’s diplomatic ideas and the development of discourse power. In this study, the text of the regular press conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2020 to 2022 was taken as the research object, and a parallel corpus of Chinese and French was built. By using the research methods of quantitative statistics and qualitative analysis of examples, the distribution of metaphor modes in China’s diplomatic discourse was investigated, and it was found that there were high-frequency metaphor modes such as journey metaphor and family metaphor in diplomatic discourse, which vividly showed the positive development concept and image of a powerful nation. Based on the compound translation standard of “political equivalence + image representation” put forward by Yang Mingxing and Zhao Yuqian, it is found that four Chinese-French translation methods of metaphors in diplomatic discourse are suitable: preserving vehicles, transforming vehicles, omitting vehicles, and supplementing vehicles. Appropriate translation strategies and methods for different metaphor types and in different contexts will help to enhance the acceptance of the audience of diplomatic discourse, and provide new help for telling the story of China and spreading the voice of China.