The Instrumentality Of Internet In Translation As A Cross-Cultural Communication Process

It is agreed that language is a component of culture and reflects it; translation is notonly a process of linguistic transfer but also a process of cross-cultural communication.Cultural background knowledge covers geographic characteristics, history, tradition, socialcustoms, religion, arts and other aspects of a society. Furthermore, it influences thepsychological composition of individuals in a certain society. Therefore, target languagereaders may experience culture shock from the translations that fail to properly deal withcultural factors as a result of gaps found in cultural background knowledge.With the rapid development in science and technology, we are entering an informationage that is closely related to computers and Internet technology. In this new age, knowledgein various fields is processed in a scale that no one can ever imagine. However, informationon the Internet may contain errors or mislead. Therefore, it has become an importantresearch topic how translators in the new age treat the Internet information and how suchinformation can be integrated into the translation process to improve translation quality andefficiency.Translators should improve their skills in using modern translation tools to increasequality and efficiency, and Internet information is a huge language and knowledgestorehouse that meets the need of translators in both comprehension and reproductionstages. Internet information can not only provide background knowledge and parallel texts,but also help find and confirm technical terms, proper names and collocations. There arethree approaches for searching information—using search engines, visiting officialinstitutional websites, and searching through directories.Different from print resources, web documents and pages are provided by any possibleman in the world without any filters. Therefore, translators have to develop a qualitymanagementstrategy to ensure the quality of Internet information, much of which maylack in accuracy, reliability and value. Translators should also bear in mind that Internetinformation serves only as a helpful tool in the translation process, and completely relyingon Internet information is not a good choice.In a word, in the Internet-dominated information age, translators should pay attention to the importance of Internet information and learn how to use different functions theInternet provides to improve translation quality and efficiency. Due to the limited time andthe author's poor background in translation theory, this thesis doesn't offer extensivediscussions of theoretical aspects, which need to be further explored in my future studies.