On Features and Translation of English News Headlines---开题报告

News media is the best channel of knowing every field including  politics, economics, science, culture, and society. A good news headline could demonstrate the readability of a piece of news and attract readers to read the whole article. That is to say, Headline is the essential part of news report. As the pace of life is getting faster people do not have enough time to read the whole article and they acquire news’ main information from the headlines. So we should pay more attention to translation of news headline. 

This paper is composed of three parts, it focuses on introducing the linguistic and cultural differences between English and Chinese news headlines translation process is not easy, the definition and features of news headline are presented in chapter one. In chapter two, the differences and similarities are explained and examples are cited to support it .The problem existed in English news headline translation are introduced in the last chapter. Then this paper introduces three criteria such as truthfulness clarity and accuracy and tactics, namely literal translation, free translation, amplification and simplification that can be applied in E-C news headline translation and explain how and when to use these translation methods through some concrete examples. Finally it comes to the conclusion.

In a word, this paper tries to find a suitable way of English news headlines translation through the discussion of the features. The translator must focus on the habitual expression differences and cultural differences between English and Chinese news headline and select effective strategies to produce a quality translation. The quality translation will be essentially a flexible way of making good use of these translation methods. 

Keywords: translation of English news headline, translation stategy, translation Criteria

Table of contents Page

1 Introduction 

1.1 Research Background 

1.2 Research Objective

2 Literature Review

2.1 Studies on News English Translation at Home

2.2 Studies on News Translation Abroad

3 A brief Review on Translation Criteria

3.1 Definition of English News Headlines

3.2 Definition of News Headline

3.3 Features of News Headline

4 Comparison between E-C News Headlines

4.1 Differences between E-C News Headlines

4.2 Similarities between E-C News Headlines

5 Translating of English News Headline

5.1Difficulties of English News Headlines Translation

5.2 Importance of E-C News Headline Translation

6 Conclusion  

7 Bibliography 

8 Appendix: English news headlines and their translations

1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background 

Nowadays, the step of globalization is getting faster so it is necessary for the Chinese people are more eager to know the world and to be known by the world. News is everywhere in our daily life, news keeps us informed of what is going on around us. A Piece of news is usually composed of a headline, a lead and a body. Especially, the headline is the eye of a piece of news. because the pace of people’s life is getting faster and people do not have much time to read the whole news and tend to acquire the main content of news from the headline. So the quality of headline is very important, it plays an important and special role in our daily life. Generally speaking, a good translation could help readers acquire the source language headlines’ content and attract readers to read the whole article. This paper intends to explain the translation of English news headline and thus illustrate how the translator achieves the "optimal relevance" through the habitual expression differences and cultural differences between English and Chinese.

1.2 Research Objective

English news headline has different features, in my opinion, the translator must focus on the habitual expression differences and cultural differences between English and Chinese news headline and select effective strategies to produce a quality translation, some examples will be list to explain how to translate English news headline with different translation methods. I hopes that this research can provide useful experience to other translators and expects that further research on E-C news headline could be invited in the future.

2 Literature Review

News headlines, as one of the most important in a Piece of news, directly and indirectly influences people’s reading interests and where they like to worship. It is difficult for a translation to translate news headlines properly, so the quality of the translated versions is very important.

This chapter mainly reviews the studies on news translation both abroad and at Home.

2.1 Studies on News English Translation at Home

Translation study has a long history in China, but it was until 1980s that the work of news translation was really caught journalists' and language scholars' attention. Generally speaking, the study of news translation has gone through four stages of development.

At the first stage, most of the studies were based on language rhetoric and stylistic theories. Scholars and translators mainly focused on the rhetoric and stylistic features of news English from the perspective of readers. 

The second stage of news translation study mainly based on the theories of the Transformational and Generative Grammar (T-G Grammar) as well as stylistics. The rise of T-G Grammar and stylistics provided support for the research of news translation. Besides the studies on words, grammar and rhetorics, the study on the structure of English news was also became the focus.

The third stage of news translation mainly based on the “Functional Theory" and the functional stylistics. The well-known Chinese study scholars,such as Liu Yulin, Wang Zuoliang, Shen Jinbo, Zhang Jian , they  help to expand the research field of news translation study and paved the way for more studies on news translation. 

At the fourth stage of translation study, a more open research field is presented and plural research methods are used. During this period of time, many articles about news translation theories, news translation principles, news translation criticisms and stylistic features of news were published.

All translators by famous linguists in China who focus on practical translation. such as Liu Mi Qing, Xu Mingwu, Chen HongWei, and Liu QiZhong and so on. They have made their contribution to the translation of English news headlines.

2.2 Studies on News Translation Abroad

Nowadays, the intercultural communication is becoming increasingly significant, more and more researchers realize that the two fields work closely in even every area. Some famous translation scholars in this field such as Alexander Fraser Tytler and Eugene A. Nida who points out that translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source-language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style. 

An international conference focusing on the topic of Translation in Global News was held in the University of Warwick in April, 2004. From different perspectives, many scholars reported their studies in global news translation in this international conference .One of the scholars, in his article, he calls attention to the differences between academic and market parameters for evaluation. Bassnett (2005) argues that debates about the two strategies in news translation:acculturation and foreignisation. Bani (2006) discusses the standard practices and translation which is based on observations with an emphasis on how translators cope with cultural diversity in news translation .Thomson, White and Kitley (2008) compare the language of hard news across languages and cultures. 

The studies abroad are mainly carried out from the perspectives of theories and applications, news translation strategies or methods and the communication studies.They focus on the actual practice in different media, the journalist's role and the translation evaluation. The scientific methodology should take the role of guidance in the studies of news translation.

Bibliography

[1]陈福康.中国译学理论史稿[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社,2000.

[2]陈宏薇.汉英翻译基础[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社,1998.

[3]刘其中.新闻翻译翻译[M].北京:清华大学出版社.2009.

[4]朱伊革.英语新闻的语言特点与翻译[M].上海:上海交通大学出版社.

[5]陈明瑶.浅论英语新闻编译加工[J].《中国翻译》，2001年（期） 

[6]贾岐国.关联理论视角下的英汉新闻翻译研究[Z].知网空间 :// .cnki.com.cn ,2012年/2015年

[7]谢侃.20种英语常见修辞方法（珍藏资料） [Z].Kevin英语课堂／2015年09月04日

[8] edifier_ yap.文献综述/literature review: motivation in knowledge workers[Z].英语^范文网.  :// .51lunwen.org/.2012年12月02日

[9]E-Power. English news headline translation [Z]. :// .doc88.com/.2011年11月02日

[10] 谢侃.英美媒体如何设计习大大访美的新闻标题 [Z].Kevin英语课堂／2015年09月22日