Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research Background
Prior to subsequent argument, it is necessary to make clear the meaning or thedefinition of news translation. News translation is to make use of language B(targetlanguge) to convey the message of the news in language A(source languge), through asecond transmission, and the language B reader can not only obtain the messageconveyed in the source language, but also the education and enlightenment similar tothe source language reader, enjoying the same information feat and literary feat.(LiuQizhong, 2004). From the definition of news translation, we can perceive that theessence of news translation is used to convey the same information and even the samelanguage style and the culture to the reader. News translation, as a unique mode ofpropagation, is to convey the message correctly and effectively. And the effective andcorrect information propagation depends on favorable interaction between the writerand the reader, therefore, the propagation effects and the acceptability of thetranslation is the criterion for a successful translation (Chen Hongwei, 2004). How can make the news translation successful has been a subject in translationcircle for a long time. Many scholars in translation circle devote themselves in thenews translation study. By doing data analysis, Huang Qin (2007) finds that newtranslation study mainly falls into the following parts: news translation theory, newstranslation principle, news translation strategies, translation criticism, etc. Among allthe research related to news translation, news translation theory and news translationstrategies take eighty-five percentages of all according to the data collection in HuangQin’s research on new translation, which indicates that news translation theory andnews translation strategies account for the domain part of news translation study. Onlytranslation theory itself accounts for 24% of all the news translation studies, rankingthe second; it demonstrates that translation theory play a significant role in newstranslation by instructing the news translation from macroscopic view. Therefore, thisthesis also accesses news translation from the theoretical view.
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1.2 The Objectives and Significance of the Research
As it has been mentioned previously, the author attempts to unveil a fresh angleof news translation study by adopting Constructivist translatology in news translation.Constructivist translatology, as a new emerging theory, is put forward by Professor LvJun with a series of thesis expounding the concept and the foundation ofConstructivist translatology. Constructivist translatology makes translation convertfrom semantic-grammatical model to semantic-pragmatic model (Lv & Hou, 2005). Italso veers the philosophical background of translation from theoretical philosophyinto practical philosophy. The two conspicuous features of Constructivisttranslatology can make news translation do better in revealing the authentic meaningof the source text and improving the acceptability of the translation. Meanwhile newstranslation is an important part of translation study and it has not found a befittingtheory to guide the translation process; therefore, the author attempts to use theConstructivist translatology to instruct the news translation to offer a vent to solve thebottleneck of news translation.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 The Definition of News
Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary (Edition 6th) defines“news” as follows：news is reports of recent events that appear in newspaper ontelevision or radio. Numerous scholars specialized in journalism have also attemptedto definite the word “news”. Until now, the research on news is prosperous andprolific, as journalism scholar and related journalists are giving more than 170definitions to “news”(Wu & Zhu, 2011). Stone (1992) has put it that news is theinformation in certain form, which is easily accepted by the reader , and is related tothe concerns of the audience. Rayner (2001) mentioned that news, as a kind of massmedia, is reporting and representing to us what is happening all around the world, toattract the audience’s attention. Also, news is some reports that will interest themajority in a community and is something new to the audience (Itule, 1991).Narasimha Rao (1931:54) mentioned that “news is the record of current ideas, eventsor problem that interests people”. Philip H. Ault, Edwin Emery and Warren K. Agee(1979:11) argue that “ journalism is a report of things as they appear at the moment ofwriting, not a definitive stuffy of a situation and news is reports is a kind of publicaffairs documentaries”.
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2.2 The Primary Features of News
No matter the news or journalistic reports are written in what language, it hassomething in common, and they also distinguish themselves from each other,especially in the usage of language. This section will commence on the introductionof the features of Chinese news and English news respectively, on lexical andsentential level. The discussion for the features of Chinese news and English news isthe foundation for summary of the similarities and differences between Chinese newsand English news. Later on, the similarities and differences between Chinese newsand English news is presented, as a foundation for the selection for the translationprinciple and translation strategies in news translation. The features of Chinese journalistic reports are summarized from the followingtwo aspects: on the lexical level; on the sentential level. The author selects these twoaspects to analyze the features of Chinese news as a foreshadowing of the comparisonbetween the two languages in news.
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Chapter Three The Theoretical Framework: Constructivist Translatology .....16
3.1 The Review of Constructivist Translatology .......16
3.2 Dominant Features of Constructivist Translatology ........25
3.2.1 Translation as a Dialogue........25
3.2.2 Translative Ethics........27
3.2.3 Relativism .......28
3.2.4 Language as a Media ........30
3.3 Connection between Constructivist Translatology and News Translation ....31
Chapter Four Quantitative Research....34
4.1 Research Questions and Objectives .........34
4.2 Data Collection ....35
4.3 Research Method and Instrument ......36
4.4 Results and Discussion ....37
Chapter Five Principles and Strategies of News Translation under ConstructivistTranslatology .........46
5.1 Qualitative Study under Constructivist Translatology .....46
5.2 Principles of News Translation under Constructivist Translatology........55
5.3 Strategies of News Translation under Constructivist Translatology........60
5.4 Enlightenment on Translator in News Translation.......78
Chapter Five Principles and Strategies of News Translation
5.1 Qualitative Study under Constructivist Translatology
In this section, the author will do qualitative analysis of the data in chapter four,analyzing the translation strategies more deeply and deducing translation principlesunder Constructivist Translatology. Qualitative analysis in this section will be madefrom the perspective of translation strategies and translation principles respectively bydoing data analysis. The translation strategies are summarized according to theranking in the data, while the translation principles will be obtained by data analysis For qualitative analysis, the author will commence with the data analysis of thetranslation strategies from lexical level, sentential level and cultural level respectively.On lexical level, the statistics shows that conversion, preposition of modifier andidiomatic translation are the main translation strategies accounting for 83.2%, withconversion 35.9%, idiomatic translation 21.5% and preposition of modifier 25.8%respectively. (see details in Table 5.1)
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Conclusion
The thesis aims to demonstrate the feasibility and superiority of Constructivisttranslatology in news translation. The thesis unfolds with the review of relatedresearch background. By literature review, we find the feature of Chinese news onlexical level is utilization of idiom and proverb, while the features of English news onlexical level are substantive postposition of words and preference of static words. Thefeature of Chinese news on sentential level is utilization of short sentences, while thefeatures of English news on sentential level are the preference of passive voice andcomplex sentences pattern. The similarities and differences between Chinese andEnglish new are: (1)conciseness, (2) objectiveness. The differences are: (1) differentcultural backgrounds; (2) different language systems. By literature review, we findthat news translation has been carried out with numerous translation theories, such asEquivalence Theory, Functional Theory, Relevance Theory, Register Theory, ContextTheory, the Cultural School Theory, Theme-Rheme Theory, but the relationshipbetween news translation and the translation theory are relatively weak. Therefore,Constructivist translatology will be applied in news translation in this thesis.
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