Translating Classical Citations in Chinese Political Discourse: Challenges and Strategies for International Dissemination
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Abstract
Classical citations (dian gu/ yong dian) are core rhetorical and cultural carriers in Chinese political discourse, condensing thousands of years of Chinese cultural values, historical wisdom and governance concepts. As a key link in the cross-cultural transmission of Chinese political discourse, the translation quality of classical citations directly determines the accuracy of connotation transmis-sion, the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication and the acceptance of international audiences. Based on systematic literature review, representative case analysis and comparative translation research, this paper defines the core connotation and four distinctive characteristics of classical citations in Chinese political discourse: cultural specificity, political relevance, historical continuity and rhetorical conciseness. It draws on cross-cultural communication theory, functional equivalence theory and Skopos theory to analyze three prominent dilemmas in current translation practice: cultural information loss, political con-notation distortion and audience reception gap. The root causes are traced to four aspects: cultural divergences, ideological and institutional differences, professional translation capacity shortages and imperfect institutional standard systems. Aiming at the above problems, this paper puts forward three core translation principles: political fidelity, cultural integrity and audience orientation, and constructs a flexible translation strategy system including annotated literal translation, adaptive free translation and functional equivalence substitution, as well as a multi-dimensional communication path integrating translator capacity building, translation standardization, multi-channel communication, audience segmentation and reception feedback optimization. This research enriches the theoretical system of political discourse translation and cross-cultural communication, and provides operable practical references for the accurate and efficient international dissemination of Chinese political discourse.
Keywords
Classical citation translation; Chinese political discourse; cross-cultural communi-cation; international dissemination; translation strategy
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How to cite this paper
Translating Classical Citations in Chinese Political Discourse: Challenges and Strategies for International Dissemination
How to cite this paper: Xin Li. (2026). Translating Classical Citations in Chinese Political Discourse: Challenges and Strategies for International Dissemination. Journal of Literature Advances, 3(2), 106-115.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jla.2026.12.002
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