硕士学位论文-新闻英语翻译中的审美.doc

学校代码：10254密 级：论文编号：上海海事大学SHANGHAI MARITIME UNIVERSITY硕士学位论文MASTER DISSERTATION论文题目： 新闻英语翻译中的审美 学科专业： 外国语言学及应用语言学 作者姓名： 王 晓 锐 指导教师： 瞿宗德 副教授 完成日期： 二零零八年六月 论文独创性声明 本论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研究成果。论文中除了特别加以标注和致谢的地方外，不包含其他人或其他机构已经发表或 撰写过的研究成果。其他同志对本研究的启发和所做的贡献均已在论文中作了明确的声明并表示了谢意。 作者签名： 日期： 论文使用授权声明本人同意上海海运学院有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，即：学校有权保留送交论文复印件，允许论文被查阅和借阅；学校可以上网公布论文的全部或部分内容，可以采用影印、缩印或者其它复制手段保存论文。保密的论文在解密后遵守此规定。作者签名： 导师签名： 日期： Shanghai Maritime University 上海海事大学 地 址：中国 上海 浦东大道1550号 1550 Pudong Dadao邮 编：200135 Shanghai, 200135电 话：(021)58855200 P.R.China网 址： An aesthetic approach to news English translation By Wang XiaoruiUnder the Supervision of Professor Qu Zhongde A Thesis Submitted to the College of Foreign Language of Shanghai Maritime Universityin Partial Fulfillment ofthe Requirements for the MA Degree Shanghai Maritime University June, 2008摘 要 大众传媒主要包括报纸，杂志，广播，电视等新闻媒介，在现代科技迅猛发展的今天，它与人类生活的联系越来越密切。正如美国著名新闻学家吉姆斯阿里逊所说：“当现代报纸跨越国家和地域的界限并成为世界的公共舆论时，一个国家的大事就会对其他国家产生巨大的影响”。 新闻是一门浓缩的，综合的艺术，新闻英语作为一种应用语言，因其所具有的特殊效用,已经逐渐从普通英语中独立出来而发展成为非规范化的专用语言，用词造句与普通英语也有许多差异。长期以来，人们对新闻英语的翻译已经进行了各种各样的研究。 然而，以往的研究大多忽视了从美学的角度对新闻英语翻译进行研究。由于美学的研究领域一直局限在文学范围内，因此从美学角度研究新闻英语的翻译所得的成果并不多， 在该领域的研究还没有形成一个全面，科学， 系统的体系。新闻英语存在着一定的审美价值，在具体的翻译实践中应该力求再现原文的美。从这个意义上说，新闻英语翻译也是一种艺术。本文以接受美学理论为指导，从审美视角对新闻英语的翻译进行了研究。 全文共分四章。第一章从新闻的定义，新闻的价值，新闻的种类等几个方面对新闻及新闻英语作了个总体介绍。第二章概括了新闻英语的性质，新闻英语翻译的标准， 并且介绍了姚斯，伊瑟尔的接受美学理论。第三章对新闻英语进行了审美分析，具体探讨了新闻英语的审美主体，客体及主要的审美活动，并且分析了新闻英语在语音，词汇， 修辞及文化上的审美倾向。第四章从新闻英语的语言美和内容美的角度举例分析新闻美在翻译中如何再现问题，并且论述了新闻英语翻译中的审美再现时的不可译性。最后概括总结全文，提出从审美角度对新闻英语翻译进行研究时应该注意的几个问题。关键词：新闻英语;新闻英语翻译;接受美学;审美ABSTRACT Mass media comprise the mass communications such as newspaper, magazine, radio and television and so on. With rapid development of modern science and technology, mass media are getting more and more closely related to human life. American famous journalistic Professor Arason James said, “When modern newspaper outpasses the border of a country or region and becomes the public opinion of the world, the event of a country will have a great effect on the other countries.” News is a concentrated and comprehensive art with high values. As a kind of applied language, news English has already separated from general English and developed into a non-standardized specific language because of its special application. It quite differs from general English in its diction. For a long time, studies have been made on this type of writing through different approaches. Obviously, most of the previous researches laid stress on practicality but failed to study the translation of news English through an aesthetic approach. Historically, aesthetic research has been confined to literary translation, whereas this kind of study on the translation of news English has been much neglected and findings in this field are limited, and have not developed into a comprehensive, scientific and systematic perspective. News is a report of an event, containing timely (or at least unknown) information which has been accurately gathered and written by trained reporters for the purpose of serving the reader, listener or viewer, and the best news is that which has the greatest interest of the greatest number. And it requires that the news copy itself should be an aesthetic work that is attractive. Therefore, there exist certain aesthetic values in news English. In the practice of translation, a translator should make every effort to reproduce the beauty in the original English news. In this sense, the translation of news English is a kind of art. Under the guidance of Jauss and Isers Reception Aesthetics, this thesis deals with the translation of news English through an aesthetic approach. The whole thesis is organized into four chapters. Chapter one gives a brief introduction to news and news English. Chapter Two focuses on the concept of translation, Reception Aesthetics, and the enlightenment of this theory on news translation. Chapter Three undertakes a detailed aesthetic analysis of the news English, including the explanations of the aesthetic subjects, objects. And much space is given to explain the aesthetic tendencies of news English. Chapter Four elaborates with sufficient examples the aesthetic representation of news English in Chinese from the perspective of both language and content. And untranslatability in the aesthetic representation is also discussed in this chapter. Finally the thesis ends with a conclusion which aims at highlighting what has been discussed in this thesis. Wang Xiaorui (Foreign Linguistics & Applied Linguistics) Directed by Prof. Qu ZhongdeKEYWORDS: news English, aesthetics, Reception Aesthetics, news translationContentsABSTRACT3Contents5Introduction7Chapter One Basic Knowledge of News121.1 Definition of News121.2 News Worthiness131.2.1 Timeliness131.2.2 Significance141.2.3 Prominence141.2.4 Proximity141.2.5 Uniqueness151.2.6 Human interest151.3 Classification of news15Chapter Two17Theoretical Basis for news English Translation172.1 The concept of Translation172.2 The concept of news translation182.3 Principles for news translation192.3.1 Accuracy202.3.2. Clarity212.3.3 Readability222.4 Theoretical Basic for News Translation232.4.1 The Background of Reception Aesthetics232.4.2. Basic Concept of Reception Aesthetics. Readers Role and Position Horizon of Expectation2 Fusion of Horizons262.4.3 The Significance of Aesthetics of Reception272.4.4 Limitation of Aesthetics of Reception282.5 Aesthetic Activities in News Translation292.5.1 Aesthetic Experience as Reception Progress292.5.2 Empathy302.5.3 General Aesthetic Progress in News Translation30 Comprehension3 Transformation3 Improvement3 Representation32Chapter Three34An Aesthetic Analysis of News English343.1 Aesthetic Subjects343.2 Aesthetic Objects353.2.1 Aesthetic Constituents of Aesthetic Objects353.2.2 Aesthetic tendencies in news English3 From the Perspective of Language3.1 Sound beauties3.2 Lexical features3.2.1 Journalistic words3.2.2 Monosyllabic words3.2.3 Journalistic neologisms3.2.4 Borrowed words40. From the Perspective of Rhetoric Devices4.1 Rhyme4.2 Allusions4.3 Metaphor4.4 Hyperbole4.5 Personification4.6 Pun4.7. Skewed quotations4 From the Perspective of culture47Chapter Four Aesthetic Representation in News English Translation494.1 The Aesthetic Representation of News English in Chinese494.1.1 Conveyance of Beauty in Language4 On Phonological Level50. On Lexical Level5 On Syntactical Level5 On Rhetorical Level5.1 Imitation5.2 Substitution5.3 Paraphrase564.1.2 Conveyance of Beauty in Content5 Image5 Emotion614.2 Untranslatability in the Aesthetic Representation62Conclusion64Acknowledgements65Bibliography66IntroductionNews, as a cultural and information carrier, is considered to be one of the most powerful informative vehicles in intercultural communication. News proves to be an effective channel for people to know the outside world. “It informs us of what is going on in the world at large. In the media it is an important commodity as well as a way of attracting audience keen to be informed of the events taking place in the world in which they live”(Rayner 215). People read newspapers to know what is happening around us, in other parts of the country, and throughout the world. Under such circumstances, news translation plays an important role in improving mutual communication. News translation is a profession, a career, a bridge and an art. It enables the readers mastering one language to get the information collected and reported in another language. The main purpose of news translation is to convey information, and in the meantime, the efficiency and accuracy of the news must be taken into consideration. Although the past two or three decades have witnessed vast development in news translation, the work that has been done in this field is quite limited compared to that in other areas. Being a special and significant part of translation, news translation is an area that is far from being explored. There is a relative paucity of theoretical writing on news English in general and news English translation in particular. And now, it is high time that news translation should be given due attention in the present field of translation studies. In the present thesis, the author makes a tentative study on the translation of news English with an attempt to discuss it through an aesthetic approach. Therefore, Reception Aesthetics serves as the theoretical bases of this thesis. According to Reception Aesthetics, the aesthetic significance of an art form cannot be fully achieved without the participation of its receptors. The reception process is a kind of aesthetic experience. All works are read against some horizon of expectation, which should not be conceived in terms of a fixed or closed standpoint. Reception Aesthetics provides a new perspective for news translation, that is, from the perspective of the readers. The translator should take into consideration the implied readers aesthetic tastes and judgment, their psychological needs, and attach great value to their receptivity. The Chinese version of an English news story should be both cultural savor and good commercial appeal. It means that the version should not only be faithful to the original, but also cater to the aesthetic taste of the target language receptors and satisfy their psychological needs. Abiding by reception Aesthetics and many other translational theories, this thesis gives an aesthetic study on the translation of news English.Literature Review In the world nowadays, news translation ranks one of the most important activities in the press all over the world. As a significant though difficult subject, news translation failed to attract enough theory-based research and the works on it are not easy to find. On the basis of a great deal of news translation practice, some theoretical research have been done, some of which in turn serve as the guideline for the practice. Now I will present a general review of the relative studies that I can find on news translation in China. As early as the 1980s, most news translation study just touch upon the language features especially at the lexical level. Liu Yulin(1981) analyzed some modern English and American newspapers and magazines and found that news English prefers to use Journalistic words and nonce words and it is under the impact of commercialism, sport, gambling and science and technology. Many new words can be created by derivation, affixation, composition, acronyms, clippings, sense-shift. Liu Bingzhang(1980) pointed out that news English at least has two features: wide scopes and new words. He put forward some methods to deal with those news words one may come across in the news translation. Zhang Jian and Tang Jianrui(1996) attempted to provide an effective way to translate Chinese neologisms into English. They suggested finding out the corresponding words in English first. For those new words, which have no corresponding words in English, it is essential to fully understand the original text and pay much attention to the cultural difference. Background explanation, Chinglish and China English prove to be effective ways to fulfill the job. Zhang Jian (2001) again analyzed translation tactics for rendering Chinese neologisms into English and discussed how these tactics offer ways of minimizing or avoiding possible translation errors. The author held that lexical comprehension, translation tactics and flexibility in expression are central to the proper rendering of Chinese neologisms into English. Zhu Tianwen(2003) discussed the translation of Chinese culture words in American news journals and pointed out that the translation strategy for such words is foreignization and the main translation tactics include free translation, transliteration plus explanation, literal translation and literal translation plus explanation. From the articles mentioned above, it is not difficult to find that a majority of those articles discuss about the language and stylistic features of news English, for instance, neologisms in new reports, rhetoric devices in headlines, omissions and appositions at grammatical level and so on. When it comes to news translation, it is more often only about the characteristics of news translation, or translation strategies and translation tactics in the progress. However, reporting on China in English for foreign audience is far from the word-for-word, or sentence-for-sentence translation of Chinese news. Based on the first-hand examples, Zhang Jian (2001b) probed into the particularities highlighting the translation of Chinese news reports for international communication hinges, for its success, on the communication effect, which is subjected to proper translation of Chinese news in the cross-cultural communication. In News English and Translation by Xu Mingwu(2003), the author gave a detailed description of each type of news, analyzed the basic characteristics of news language and then provided the principles of news translation. The four principles for news translation can be generalized as accurate rendering, popular language, proper style and fast speed. According to Xu Mingwu, news translation is firstly characterized by its strong political nature, which especially requires the accuracy of the rendering. Secondly, news translation is of a mass character, which demands the version be in a popular language so that it is easy to read. Thirdly, the various types or forms of news determine the translated text should be in its appropriate style. Lastly, news translation must be timely. It is justified to say that Xu Mingwus principles for news translation are quite comprehensive and systematic because they not only reflect the characteristics and natures of news language, but also cover both the contents and forms of news translation. Nevertheless, some parts of the principles are still open to question. For instance, Xu Mingwu held that news is of a strong political nature, which may not by the truth if it is a piece of news about economy or science and technology or sports. Moreover, Xu Mingwus accurate rendering mainly refers to finding out the accurate version for journalistic neologisms, which I dont think is complete, because the news translation is not only related to the lexical level, but rhetorical level as well. Anyway, Xu Mingwu,s four principles can be regarded as a scientific summary of the practice in news English translation and will certainly in turn direct the practitioners in this field. Needless to say, his principles exert great inspiration to my present study. My study is essentially based on the research results mentioned above and I cannot agree any more with these researchers that the essential purpose of news translation is the same as that of international communication, which is to achieve the maximum positive publicity effect and to shape a positive image for China or to restore it if it has been tarnished. It is obvious that most scholars have found that linguistic and cultural barriers, translators incompetence in the process of translation and communication, and the differences between Chinas communication industry and that of western countries all pose difficulties in news translation. They suggest a lot of feasible solution to deal with these difficulties, such as abridgement, adaptation, interpretation, amplification, omission, or some concrete skills to translate the news titles, openings and closings, etc. Guided by these rules and theories, Chinas international communication has made considerate progress these years. However, none of them have introduced Reception theory into news translation, which though have been widely applied in the Western world. Therefore, this thesis will deal with the translation of news English through an aesthetic approach with the guidance of Jauss and Isers Reception Aesthetics.Chapter One Basic Knowledge of News1.1 Definition of News “In our todays world, no one is unfamiliar with news. With the help of mass media, news seems accessible to everybody”(Dominick, 2001). Journalistic style is a kind of writing used to report news. Therefore, we should first know the meaning of the word “news”, which is very familiar to people, but difficult to be defined accurately. One of the sayings goes like the word news consists of the initial letter of “North”, “East”, “West”, and “South”. So it refers to the information collected from all directions. Of course, it is only an imaginary idea without solid proof. In fact, there are almost as many definitions as there are editors and reporters, and most readers have their own ideas of what news is as well ( Leiter, Harriss& Johnson, 2003) With regard to “What is news?” there are many d