In the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science at UNNC, we have a great many research-active academics who lecture about creative topics from all around the world. In particular, we are very proud of our School of Education and English (EDEN), whose academics specialize in all kinds of literary and linguistic communication. As you can imagine, EDEN academics are very busy and in great demand! When they’re not travelling around the world to give guest lectures and talks, they are organizing theatre productions with students and visiting high schools to speak with potential UNNC students. Amongst all this work, they somehow manage to produce a great many high-quality publications, many of which are the first of their kind to address such important issues about linguistics and translation.

 

This week, we caught up with EDEN Assistant Professor Dr. Nancy Liu, who has recently published a groundbreaking book that addresses the very important issues involved in translating news and media. Nancy is in demand, so we’re very grateful she made time to talk with us about her new book, and offer a few words of advice for researchers!

 

Hi Nancy! Please tell us about your new book!

It is called “News Framing through English-Chinese Translation: A comparative study of Chinese and English media discourse” and is published by Routledge. It came out in 2019 finally and is actually the culmination of about 10 years work. 

 

Congratulations, we are so proud that you chose to be part of UNNC. What inspired you to write about this topic?

I’ve always taken a great interest in listening to news on radio or television. What strikes me is the different angles of telling the same story. My research and working experiences are all very much related to translation but without training in journalism. So I began to ask questions about how news is translated. As we know, if you talk about translation, usually people tend to think it is something that should be a faithful reproduction of source text.

 

This sounds very interesting. How did you conduct the research?

As you can see, publication of the book was the culmination of a very long process. It was my PhD work starting with my earlier interest in news stories. Then after I completed my degree, I started thinking of publishing it as a book. I conducted the research firstly by studying journalism in order to pin down a theoretical framework. Then I came across this fantastic theory of framing. However, I found that it had always been applied to analyze various kinds of stories reported by different media, which is difficult to explain in news stories that have been translated into different languages and which usually cover all imaginable areas from very serious issues to topics of common concern. Then I started to build my own analytical framework which I’ve given it the term “transframing” i.e. translation-mediated framing. To test the validity of the framework, I collected data of both source texts and translated target texts, which were then further analyzed by using mixed methods of quantitative and qualitative research.

 

What support did you receive in your research?

I should say that although I haven’t received physical support in terms of funding or leave, the platform of research at UNNC was a great support for me. This platform enabled me to get to know colleagues and scholars from around the world, and I drew many of my inspirations through communications with them. It has also offered me the opportunity to present my research to scholars around the world at some international conferences where I got feedbacks and comments on my work.  

 

We’re so glad that UNNC helped you so much. But, were there any surprises along the way?

As all things in life, there has always been ups and downs during the writing process. Sometimes, I got stuck and felt that I couldn’t go on. Then somehow one way or another after a break or more reading, I’d figure out some questions. That’d be a moment of surprise for me, things can be as easy as that. But surprises never come easily, they are the outcome out of days of hard work, reading or thinking.

 

It sounds like you worked very hard. What are your future research plans now?

Research is like a ship, once you are on board and get going, it’ll be difficult for you to stop. After the book, I’ve broadened my research into areas such as city branding and mobile translation studies that have all born fruits with some papers published. Right now I’ve signed another contract with Routledge and am publishing an edited volume entitled “Chinese News Discourse: Perspectives from Communications, Linguistics, Translation and Pedagogy” that is due by the end of this year. Also, I’d love to go back to my translation work by translating a book on Yuanmingyuan or the ‘Old Summer Palace’ into English, which has always been on my mind. I also have some other projects in collaboration with colleagues that are ongoing as well.

 

Wow! You don’t stop! What is your advice to students who would like to study and research in your topic?

I think the most important thing is that you feel you have something to say on the topic. Then don’t just stop at that, you should set out to explore by reading or discussing your ideas with your supervisors or peers. Another thing is to never be constrained by your own field. We can always hear students say I study language, media or translation, which means you are limiting yourselves into that area. Try to broaden your horizon by looking into disciplines outside your comfortable zone, you’ll be able to learn more. At the end of day, you’ll find that research works are mostly interdisciplinary anyway. 

 

 

Thank you so much Nancy. We wish you all the best with your next book – we hope you’ll come back to talk to us again after publication!