报刊翻译第四章简介

Chapter IV：Chinese and English Newspaper Translation

Summary:

Nowadays, with the reformation of the political and

economic systems and the implementation of the policy of

opening up to the outside world, neologism such as “love

outreach,” “household output-related contract responsibility

system”, “careers fair”, etc. spring up like mushrooms in the

newspapers. These fresh expressions are the reflection of

people’s thinking model and lifestyle, yet many translation

problems are found in them. For example, people usually choose

word for word translation and Chinglish , thus “issue an IOU”

becomes “give a white slip”, “youth who has taken a wrong step

in life” becomes “youths who have lost their footing”, “do

marathon talk on telephone” becomes “make a over long phone

call, like cooking congee” ,and “popular investment spot”

becomes “investment hot spot”. Or people’s ignorance of the

linguistic habits, ambiguity of the register and the meaning of

the original text, reversion of the word order, loss of the local

style, and lack of caution in political items in translation may

also bring up many other problems.

Is there any strategy to tackle such problems, then?

According to the adequate experience of the reporters and the professional translations, frequently collection of the sound

expressions, addition of the essential explanation, capture of

the essence of the materials, proper complementation and

reasonable ways to deal with the cultural diversity play an

essential role in improving the quality of the target language.

Besides, some acceptable Chinglish and China English which

have Chinese characteristics can be taken into serious

consideration. What’s more, understanding the multi-cultural

diversity and proper use of the affixes and numbers help a lot.

Of course, you can also combine the new translation with the

old ones. In a word, there is no fixed principle in translation,

all the secrets lie in practice.

Outline of each section

4.1 Newspapers neologism

4.1.1 Overview of neology

“爱心活动”——“love outreach”,“扶贫工作”——“aid

the poor project” ，“打的”——“hail a taxi”

4.1.2 Perspective of translation problems

4.1.2.1 Word for word and Chinglish

News tends to translate by word for word ,such as “打白条”（issue an IOU）→give a white ship ,“投资热点（popular investment spot）→investment hot spot.

In addition, it’s possible to see “moral court”, “nail

house hood”, which foreign readers have difficulty to

understand, appearing in the newspapers. The

corresponding translation in English is “conscience forum”

and “recalcitrant”.

4.1.2.2 Regardless of Language Habits

“保税区”（bounded area）——“tax-protection area”，“第三者”（the other person）——“the third person”.

4.1.2.3 Misunderstanding of the original meaning.

The mistakes in translation are attributed to

misunderstanding of original meaning. For example, “新村”,we translate it into “new village”, but the better one

is “village” or “residential quarters”.

4.1.2.4 Regardless of original register.

The thought to be expressed and how to express affect

the use of language. Such as, “傍大款” means find a

very rich man,“当托儿” means act as a speaker or an

agent, but the authentic translation are “find a sugar

daddy” and “act as a shill”.

4.1.2.5 Reversion of the word order.

中小型企业(small-sized and medium enterprises)——medium-sized and small enterprises;中小学(primary and

middle schools) ——middle and primary schools.

The word order is “determiner, nature, form, color,

origin, property, and noun”.

4.1.2.6 Imperfect of Back Translation

Back translation is a popular method of translation, that

is to say, the original and primary expression of a word

should be used. What’s more , we shouldn’t use another

created word to replace the equivalents .For example ,

“过劳死”, we always translate it into “death from

overwork”. But we should use “Karoshi” to replace it,

because we can find the equivalent of “过劳死” in

English .Why don’t we use the more accurate and local

ones? Similarly, we use “hacker”, “dark horse ”,

“marital hope ” rather than “black guest” ,”black horse”

and ”in- marriage rape”.

4.1.2.7 Lack of caution in political items

Owing to the differences between Chinese policy and

foreign ones and the inadequate understanding of

Chinese policy for foreigners, many translated words

about Chinese policy, culture and history can’t be

understood. We translate “对外开放政策” into “the open