Research On Translating The Culture-specific Items In Chinese News Into English

With the further development of the globalization, especially after its entry into WTO,China is playing a more and more active role in the international business. And the number ofnews about China is rising dramatically worldwide. They would inevitably involve some“culture-specific items” which are caused by the socioeconomic and cultural differencesbetween the West and the East. Loaded with abundant cultural connotations, they always poseobstacles in the translation process; the features of news, such as preciseness, compactness, andobjectivity require the translation of culture-specific items to be efficient and simple. Up tonow there is no translation method that could make the requirements of news translation,since most scholars conducted their study on literary text. Even though attention has been paidto the translation of culture-specific items, still few scholars fixed their research on translatingculture-specific items in news, that’s why this thesis would make a tentative study on theChinese-English translation of culture-specific items in Chinese news.Based on Aixelá’s translation method of culture-specific items, this thesis focuses on thespecific translation method of culture-specific items in Chinese news, with a combination ofmy translation experience. On one hand, the thesis would analyze the specific translationmethod of culture-specific items so as to enrich the relative translation theory of it; on the otherhand, all of the translation cases studied in the thesis comes from my news translation practice,which makes the study more pertinent.With a comprehensive study carried out, the conclusion of the thesis goes like this.(1)Translators should keep the original flavor of culture-specific items during translationprocess, for news is objective and truthful;(2) The translated news, especially for itsculture-specific items, should have the same stylistic features as the original one;(3) Asforeign publicity text, translated news should be readable and funny for readers, in a bid toattract foreign readers attention and propagandize Chinese culture;(4) Under mostcircumstances, translators should adopt two or more translation methods to keep the originalmeaning of the source text to the largest extent.This thesis could serve as a reference for news translation practice and teaching. As atough problem in translation process, translation of culture-specific items should beconsidered as an important part in news translation and be included into news translationteaching course. The proper translation of culture-specific items demands profound culturalbackground information and proficient language skills, that’s why when teaching translationcourses, the autonomous learning ability should be inspired so that the bilingual corpus in his mind can be activated. Only in this way, the translated news can function as equal as theoriginal text.