Translation Of Chinese News For Foreign Audiences Using Online Media

With globalization pushing forward,the Chinese government seeks to develop a better international image and a favorable external environment for continued growth via moves of international communication.However,whether the export of Chinese culture is welcomed by those expected “importers” remains questionable,with evidence from past efforts demonstrating low efficacy.Exponential development of the Internet has endowed online media with incomparable advantages over traditional media and may offer ways of improving China’s global communication and reputation.Expanded use of online media to translate and communicate Chinese news for foreign audiences offers an ideal opportunity to promote China to the world.This concept has drawn keen attention from academia,signifying its importance and is thus the central object of this study.A review of current studies on news translation reveals that recent studies on the translation of Chinese news for foreign audiences using online media do not fully explore the differences between online media and traditional media.Furthermore,past stuies have not adequately addressed the intrinsically interwoven processes of communication and translation,as required to produce a thorough,well-rounded discussion of news translation.This study probes both the process of translation and the effect of communication using online platforms,resulting in a panoramic view of the Translation of Chinese News for Foreign Audiences Using Online Media.Recent studies also indicate that researchers have started to probe translation for China’s global communication from New Rhetoric,but there are still very few studies that apply it to the translation of Chinese news for foreign audiences.Additionally,argumentative and empirical approaches have been applied in relevant studies,but empirical investigations have lacked sufficient discussion of communication effect on translation.Finally,the findings of relevant news translation studies have advanced both the theory and practice of balanced development within this domain of study,but so far there have been no studies on the translation of Chinese news for foreign audiences using online media that treat the online media collectively as a translation entity,a platform of translation publicity and a communication medium at the same time in order to offer a comprehensive view of this research area.This shortfall of comprehensive studies has hindered progress in the development and improvement of this research field.Given the significance of the New Rhetoric for in-depth understanding of the research subject and the scarcity of studies that apply the rhetorical ideas of Kenneth Burke to the translation of Chinese news for foreign audiences,the researcher reviews current studies on translation for China’s global communication from the perspective of the Western Rhetoric and those on the rhetorical ideas of Kenneth Burke,finding a strong connection between the New Rhetoric and translation for China’s global communication,and proposes the benefit of using the New Rhetoric to extend the traditional concept of rhetoric in academia,to facilitate further development of interdisciplinary translation studies,and to provide a new perspective for future studies on China’s global communication through online media;and the rhetorical ideas of Burke,considerably extending the traditional conception of rhetoric,have been seeing the scope of their application expanded with the furthering of studies,and they shall cover the macro,medium and micro levels of this study and facilitate further development of interdisciplinary translation studies,thus they’re made part of the theoretical pillar.On primarily fixing the object and the theoretical support for the study,the researcher reveals,layer by layer,the meanings of “Translation of Chinese news for Foreign Audiences Using Online Media” and “the Dramatism-based Rhetorical Outlook”,the two core concepts of this study,with the aim of facilitating the application of “dramatism”,the key to Burke’s rhetorical realm,at macro,medium and micro levels when developing research questions about the intralingual,interlingual and intersemiotic translations involved in this study.With working definitions fixed,to narrow down the scope of the research,the researcher summarizes the guidelines and missions for China’s global communication at the current stage after reviewing its past development,then deduces from research findings and practical experience the principles and strategies that translation for China’s global communication shall follow,thereby identifying two significant orientations for studies on translation of Chinese news for foreign audiences using online media as related to the uniqueness of China’s online global communication: first,audience study must gain more attention;second,focus study is the key to effective audience study.Considering the significance of city image in national image building,the feasibility of the model “reaching indirect audience via direct audience” for China’s global communication and the importance of global communication for Shanghai,the researcher selects www.shanghai.gov.cn/shanghai/node27118/index.html(referred to as “Shanghai China” below),the official website of Shanghai government,as the case for study,and conducts an audience questionnaire survey targeting English-speakers who live in Shanghai.Survey findings are summarized as follows: first,most respondents would like to make “Shanghai China” a main source of news during their stay in the city,but the website is not widely known yet;second,respondents tend to take interest in soft news with Chinese-culture-themed content,written in an easy style,rather than hard news concerning political events;third,vague headlines can impair reader interest;fourth,pictures are welcomed by readers,to facilitate their understanding of a news report,but whether an objective,true,and detailed story is provided is their primary focus;fifth,so-called “negative news” doesn’t lead to negative impression of Shanghai or China,which highlights the audiences’ deeper understanding of China and the necessity of balanced news reporting.Based on these findings,the researcher conducts a pentadic analysis of English translations of news reports on the website as the rhetor,concluding that the rhetorical motive of this authority on Shanghai’s global communication is to “act” as an “agent” without consideration of “purpose”,indicating that the authority doesn’t focus its rhetorical purpose on identifying and connecting with readers to achieve communication through translation.As such,the interconnections within the pentad are broken and the emphasis on “agent” and “act” virtually demands that the agent act mainly by the will of the rhetor without taking into account the purpose that the act must achieve.The result serves as a partial rationale for the working principles and strategies of translation of Chinese news for foreign audiences described in Chapter 4,and primarily reflects the central role of the translator as “agent”,reminding relevant authorities to inject audience awareness into policy making and create a helpful environment for the “act” of the “agent”.On learning of and giving reasons for the unsatisfactory communication effect at the macro level,the researcher continues the analysis at the medium level to apply Burke’s theory of discourse as “an entity formed by the interconnections within the pentad instead of a seeming combination of words and phrases” to the source text and its translation,both deemed to be rhetorical acts.Analysis at this level reveals that the rhetorical situation consisting of exigence,audience and constraints is the direct scene and determining factor for a rhetorical act,and the translator,as the chief agent of the act,must work within constraints,and aim at overcoming the “division” of a specific rhetorical situation to exert his “terministic screen” by looking at audience demands,thus having the audience identify with his translation by reasonable means of identification.However,defects of the macro environment have severely disempowered the terministic screen.Clearly,such an act of the translator involves multiple social factors,making it a typical social practice;and critical discourse analysis(CDA),closely associated with rhetorical criticism,is usually scholars’ choice to explore a social practice.Recontextualization,a CDA concept,properly matches the fact that translation is essentially the transfer of the key information from the rhetorical situation of the original text to that of the translation.Based on this consideration and relevant research findings,a “dual recontextualization” model for the study is built for follow-up analysis of specific texts,with each step tentatively defined.Following the logic of pentad and resorting to the results of the medium-level analysis,the study then continues to conduct closer analysis of four types of texts,namely,the headline,the hard news,the soft news,and the picture news,which are studied from the following aspects: first,making pentadic analysis of the source text and the translation respectively,and pointing out the rhetorical motive when necessary;second,finding the “division” of a certain rhetorical situation and defining its impact on a translator’s use of “terministic screen” and his identification strategies;third,probing into specific texts with the “dual recontextualization” model to further understand a translator’s act and help improve the model.The text analysis finds that the translator will utilize his “terministic screen” to seek means of identification in content and in form after finding the “division” of a rhetorical situation for translation,aiming to have the audience identify with the translated text and modify the exigence of the situation.Then the “dual recontextualization” model uncovers more elements of the scene for the translator’s act beyond the text,enriches understanding of the research object,and applies new findings to help improve the model.Since analysis at all the three levels of the study has shown that the “scene” manifested in various ways,as part of the pentad,is of prominence through the whole course of translation of Chinese news for foreign audiences using online media,the researcher summarizes the key methods of improving such translations as: starting from the scene,complying with the scene and succeeding through the scene.“Starting from the scene” means the authority of news translation for foreign audiences must start the whole task by providing a favorable macro “scene” for the news translation team,including guaranteeing the team acceptable power in making decisions about translation,conducting surveys of the target audience and checking the quality of the source text,which are necessary components for the smooth operation of translation jobs.“Complying with the scene” means the acts and decisions of the translator must meet the requisite expectations of three kinds of “scenes”: first,the source text loaded with the core information;second,the rhetorical situations within the source text and the translation,and the “division” of the rhetorical situation for translation caused by their difference;third,specific online media that publicize the translation and the media’s demands and conditions for communication.As for “succeeding through the scene”,the news translation team,including the editor,the foreign language expert and website technicians,must cooperate with the translator to make the headline,picture and text of a translation fully acceptable by the audience,both in content and in form,in a bid to create an ideal online environment for the publicity of translations,oriented to the final success of their communication;innovative means,like providing background information using hyperlinks,may be tried in order to achieve the expected communication effect via the translations publicized,thereby gradually boosting the quality of translation of Chinese news for foreign audiences using online media,and contributing to the overall progress of China’s global communication.Overall,the study helps boost the application of the New Rhetoric,especially the rhetorical thoughts of Kenneth Burke,in the studies on the translation of Chinese news for foreign audiences,thereby strengthening the link between rhetoric and studies on translation for China’s global communication.In addition,building the CDA-based “dual recontextualization” model enhances the interdisciplinarity of translation studies,especially studies on translation of Chinese news for foreign audience.Furthermore,studying the case of “Shanghai China” can help improve the effect of Shanghai’s global communication and provide a possible research roadmap for English translation of Chinese news using similar online media,with relevant research results widely applied,when workable,for all-around enhancement of the effect of China’s global communication via the Internet in the end.