Ideology And Readership

An increasing number of news reports in American Magazines have appeared in the past two decades due to China's growing International Influence. The growing in-depth coverage of china has given rise to the translation of Chinese social, political and economic words that originate in a Chinese historical and cultural context. These culture-loaded words are translated by American journalists in order to raise the credibility of the news reports. Study on these translated Chinese culture-loaded words can be very beneficial and meaningful as the English renderings of these Chinese words often reach a large range of news magazine readers. Due to limited time and efforts, this author focuses her study on the translation practice of Time and Newsweek, two leading and influential magazines accessible to a vast majority of readership. With reference to the contemporary Western and Chinese translation and culture Studies, especially under the framework of Lefevere's Patronage Theory, this author made two case studies on the translated Chinese cultural-loaded words collected from the two magazines in the two time spans: 1974-1980 and 1998-2004. The results have justified her argument that readership and ideology are the two driving forces manipulating the translation practice.