Press Neologisms & C-E Translation

Vocabulary is the most active component of a language. Neologisms will be added to a language whenever there arises something new in a society such as new objects, processes, phenomena, concepts, discoveries, inventions and even feelings. In a sense, neologisms are like a mirror by means of which people can observe social changes in a society. And newspapers as a quick and convenient means of mass media plays a major role in propagating newly emerging things and at the same time spreading their numerous accompaniments—neologisms. The new comers not only enrich our everyday vocabulary but also endow us with new expressive forces in communication. At the same time, however, problems have arisen. Neologisms as part of a language are also in close relationship with the society and its culture, which unexceptionally influence the formation and development of a neologism. In other terms, neologisms may more or less involve and reflect the national social beliefs, customs, culture, system and mentality. As far as translation is concerned, it is really hard and sometimes impossible to transfer the culturally-loaded implications of neologisms, for which no ready equivalents whatsoever could be found in the TL. In addition, semantic conflicts and different semantic associations in two languages will also bring about difficulty in the transfer of meaning between the two languages. After all, language is always deeply rooted in the culture of a nation; which, in turn, gives birth to and enriches language. They are so closely bound up with each other that they will never break up.This thesis starts from the concept of style to clarify its original and present connotations in both Chinese and English languages, pointing out the importance of stylistic meaning of words in different situational contexts and texts. As is seen in news reporting, journalistic style exhibits its characteristics in many aspects. As far as the lexical features are concerned, neologisms, words from different domains, Arabic numbers, initialisms and acronyms, as well as journalistic words and expressions are very wellemployed in news reporting.The thesis presents in Chapter II a description of the relationship between neologisms and newspapers along with an analysis of the researches done in neologisms. Then, the thesis deals with the three sources of neologisms: coinage, old words with new senses and borrowings. Furthermore, the general tendency of neologisms in view of their linguistic formation and meaning is summed up: an obvious increase in analogic words, a wide use of initialisms and acronyms and apparentness of the meaning of a neologism.Chapter III surveys several old-aged and up-to-date theories and principles of translation both at home and abroad, arriving at what is the essence of translation—bilingual equivalent transfer of meaning. Such transference occurs more than on the surface layer. It is multi-layered. And the principle of translation should be based on faithfulness to the original in both content and style, and smoothness or naturalness in language. Such theories and principles are well applicable to translating news-style texts. Since journalistic text is message-oriented, it reveals characteristics of its own in the course of translation. The translation must be timely and effective, accurate and concise, and appropriate to news composition. As for rendering the neologisms in newspapers, the criteria are the same. Since neologisms are mostly new forms in structure and new meanings in conception, it is often the case that neither precedents nor references could be found for them in translation. Therefore, at the present time various strategies are taken in the process of translating neologisms. However, this thesis will limit itself to probing into strategies of rendering Chinese neologisms into English. It will deal with such neologisms as were invented and emerged after the late 1970s. They are products of the China's policy of reform and opening-up, thus being closely related with that particular times and situation. They are the reflector as well as the carrier of that era. On the basis of analysis, the writer of this thesis points out when such culturally-loaded Chinese neologisms are transcribed into English, the following strategies might be adopted: taking foreignization as primary and domestication as supplementary; employing China English to express unique Chinese things; striving for equivalent or near-equivalent translation; adopting paraphrasing as a significant means of compensation for lexical gap; and making stylisticadaptation to the original. Language is a cultural deposition. It is sometimes hard to find the counterparts in two languages. Translation, in the intercultural perspective, needs some liberalness and compensation, because peoples need to know and learn from each other's cultures, customs and civilization. The cultural communication and integration will become the mega-trend of this world.In Chapter IV, some specific Chinese neologisms are selected as illustrations of the translation strategies discussed in Chapter III. hi practice, concrete and practical translation skills, such as transliteration, word-for-word translation, meaning- translation, paraphrase, annotation, addition, reduction and combination may be employed in accordance with the need of the text.Chapter V generalizes some remarkable problems existing in C-E translation of neologisms, accompanied by a few lines of analysis.The conclusion of this thesis sums up the general strategies of rendering Chinese neologisms into English. And meanwhile suggestions are made for news translators.