从汉语新闻英译谈译者主体性

论文总字数：30718字

摘 要

新闻与人们的生活息息相关。随着全球化进程的加速，国际间交流日益频繁，新闻的翻译工作成为大众传播里最重要的一个环节。新闻翻译不仅可以帮助政府、企业、个人获取更多的信息，更能加强国际传播，有力提高一国软性竞争力。鉴于在新闻翻译领域，已有许多关于英译汉的研究成果，作为一名中国人，要让世界更好地了解自己的祖国，故本文将从汉语新闻出发，通过结合实例对译者主体性在新闻翻译中的作用进行阐述，明确译者在整个翻译活动中的地位和作用，从而更好地提高翻译的质量。

关键词：新闻；译者主体性；软实力

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Translator"s subjectivity 1

2.2 Translating Chinese news into English 5

3. Application of Translator’s Subjectivity in the Translation of Chinese News 7

3.1 The embodiment of translator"s subjectivity in the process of translation 7

3.2 Methods and strategies 9

4. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction

News is closely related to our daily life. With the development of world economy, more and more importance should be linked to practices and studies of news communication. News translation will surely help governments, companies or individuals get more information they need. At a personal level, I would like to probe into a subject relevant to both news and English.

The main reasons for the choice of Chinese-English translation are as follows: 1) Translation contributes much to international communication, which is regarded as significant remark of one country’s soft power. 2) There are already quite a few experiences and study done about English-Chinese news translation. 3) The urgent need is to let foreigners know more about China, so it turns out that studying the English translation of Chinese news is of great importance.

1. Literature Review

2.1 Translator’s subjectivity

2.1.1 Definition

When readers read a text, their understanding is not eternal. As the main body of interpretation, readers’ understanding activities can only be understood under specific historical conditions. People cannot get rid of their specific historical conditions, and cannot understand the whole meaning of the text at once. The interpretation of texts can only be a process that gradually approaches its aesthetic value. Meanwhile, there is no eternal and ultimate understanding once and for all. As an ordinary reader, the news translator can not get rid of the historical limitations, and its understanding is only one of the many kinds of understanding, so its translation is subject to personal subjectivity. Of course, the result of dialogue is to produce a translation containing both the subjective information of the original author and the subjective information of the translator. This reflects that both the author and the translator are the main body of translation, rather than the absolute suppression of one side to the other and the absolute monopoly of one party’s right to speak. The translation not only embodies the subjectivity of the original author, but also embodies the subjectivity of the translator.

The translator’s subjectivity refers to the subjective initiative of the translator, which is regarded as the subject of translation, in order to achieve the purpose of translation. The basic characteristics of the translator are the cultural consciousness, character and aesthetic creativity of the translator.

2.1.2 The unique identity of the news translator

As the “cultural turn” of translatology has been put forward, the translator’s cultural status is gradually getting rid of the marginalization. The study of the subject of translation, especially the study of the subjectivity of the translator, has received due attention and the translators gradually go deep into it.

In China, the translator’s subjectivity is mostly used in the study of literary works translation. In the translation of the news text, the translator has a great difference compared with the literary works and other applications due to the particularity of its triple identity, the particularity of the news text and the special principles that the news follows. Therefore, the translator’s subjectivity plays a unique role in showing the great degree of freedom of the translator.

News translators have their unique identities in translation activities, playing the three main roles as follows: news readers, authors and translators. First of all, news translators are readers who read a great variety of information and choose the information they need to edit. Restricted by certain historical conditions, it is impossible for the translator to comprehend all the connotation of the original text for one time. It is inevitable to show subjective initiative. Secondly, in the process of translation, the purpose of translation should be taken into account, not only to ensure the readability of the translated English and realize the purpose of communicating the Chinese culture, but the translator will also inevitably “manipulate” the original text to achieve the purpose of realizing the translation. Thirdly, journalistic English translation should ensure consistency with the original news content. To a certain extent, the responsibility of Chinese writers is the same as that of news writers, which is the transmission of information.

2.1.3 The inevitability of existence

English news is not only a text conveying objective information. It also reflects the cultural background of news writers as the main body. Provided that the general readers of the original language read the news, they may not find the subjective factors of journalists. Due to the readers of these English speaking countries have similar culture with the original authors. They are the target readers who have already considered the original author’s writing.

From the understanding and expression process of translation, translators must have subjectivity in news translation activities.

When readers read a text, their comprehensions are not eternal. Readers can not get rid of their specific historical conditions, and can not understand the whole meaning of the text at once. The interpretation of texts can only be a process that gradually approaches its aesthetic value, and there is no eternal and ultimate understanding once and for all. As an ordinary reader, the news translator can not get rid of the historical limitations, and its understanding is only one of many kinds of understanding, so its translation is subject to personal subjectivity.

English news is not only a text conveying objective information, it also reflects the cultural background of news writers as the main body. Maybe the author of news is writing in an objective manner, but his subjective information will be intentionally or unintentionally integrated into the expression. In the same incident, some people see from the front side that some people are negative and subjective feelings are revealed.

Any expression embodies a person’s aesthetic and personal creativity by itself. Meanwhile, the expression of translation is no exception, but the expression of translation reflects the acceptance of the original. The bias of understanding is conveyed through the expression process. When translating a piece of news, a translator may take various methods to screen information that he can not accept. There are many ways to change or tone down or delete words. Briefly speaking, the translator’s subjectivity will be exerting, and corresponding measures should be taken to influence the target readers.

1. In accordance with the language used in English news, translator’s subjectivity is unavoidable in news translation activities.

Journalistic English is a typical practical text, so it has the characteristics of practical texts, but at the same time it has the characteristics of literary texts.

News readers may expect news reports to be objective, but in fact, even if all the content of news is true, it may imply the subjectivity of the author, because the same fact can have different points of view, different narrative methods or different items. Of course, news includes a variety of genres, such as news, close-up, commentary, etc. As a result, the language used is different. Among them, the subjectivity of the close-up and the comment is obviously stronger, and often the author’s subjective view. On the side of function, they still belong to the application style. From the part of language, these news often uses the art language which are used commonly in literature. It has a affluent connotation along with literary works. The artistic language is often fable and symbolized, since applied style is partly used, it also has the meaning of allegory and symbolism, so the meaning of a symbol is why the translator’s expression is often creative.

1. From the point of view of the purpose of translation, the translator’s subjectivity is unavoidable in the activities of news translation.

If news translators have to achieve their own purposes, it is inevitable for a translator to give full play to his subjectivity. News translators often show the purposes of translation in the process of material selection, which is also a manifestation of subjectivity. The selection of the translation is equivalent to the selection of the ordinary newspapers. The selection of news is of great importance for translation. It embodies the style and purpose of a newspaper, also the will of the newspaper host. The will of the host is often reflected on the translator, thus translated into the will of the translator and becoming a part of the translator’s subjectivity. The will of the host and the will of the translator are the main body of the two subjects. However, in the special translation of news translation, the two are inseparable and should be regarded as one.

In order to achieve the purpose of translation, translators often break the restrictions of the original text and give full play to their subjectivity and recreate them. There may be many purposes for the translator’s translation, such as serving the political economy, creating good public opinion, winning more commercial interests, spreading the foreign culture to improve the interest and readability of the newspaper, and better transmitting information. It is limited by many factors. If translation is not restricted, there is no need to talk about the subjectivity of the translator. The translator has subjectivity and objectivity at the same time, thus forming contradictory opposites. Translation should consist of three subjects, which are the author, the translator and the target language reader. The subjectivity of the three is mutually restrictive. As the application style, the Chinese news text has its characteristics of authenticity, accuracy, politics and timeliness. Some of the features are not allowed to change. The people engaged in Chinese news translation must be strict, prudent and responsible for the treatment of the work. However, translators should not play the subjectivity of the translator without restraint. Otherwise, what they have done will have an extremely terrible social impact.

To sum up, the role of translators in Chinese news translation is not merely mechanical information transmission, but also the space to play their subjectivity.

2.2 Translating Chinese news into English

2.2.1 Importance

News has more and more effect on politics, economy, culture and people’s lives. The news translation can not only help the government, enterprises and individuals to obtain more information, but also become a powerful way to strengthen the international communication and improve the soft competitiveness of a country. With the rapid development of information technology, news reporting has become the main source of people’s access to information. It plays a very important role in information spreading activities.

With the advent of the 21st century, international communication has become more and more frequent. New development and great changes are undergoing every day and every minute in every corner of the world. Translation means rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that he author intended the text. For people from different countries using different languages, successful communication largely depends on translation. So translation plays an important role in the mass communication today, and brings great social and culture shocks through the fast and effective channels, such as newspapers, radios, televisions and Internet.

News translation, which is defined simply as translating news in one language into the news in another, as an indispensable component of translation, is much more closely tied with everyone’s daily life. The practical importance of news translation in social life has been embodied at a tremendous speed. It is beneficial from globalization and also contributes a great deal to it, leading to a more dynamic atmosphere for people and nations. Therefore the potentiality for study of news translation has been emphasized and gradually revealed. It receives increasingly academic attention from translation field and has presented promising research value.

2.2.2 Difficulties

(1) Linguistic differences

Though Chinese and English share some common natures, the differences between them pose great difficulties in the exchange.

Every language is affected by its own history, background and humanity and in turn reflects them. Therefore, differences do exist in structure, language background, thinking pattern and expressing ways between different languages and dialects. This is one of the reasons why it is sometimes difficult, even impossible to translate from one language into another.

The differences between English and Chinese can be observed from phonetics, form and meaning.

English is one of the international languages, which is based on stresses to form its rhythm while Chinese is a tonic one, which is based on syllables with four tones. As to the form, differing from English words composed by any of the 26 letters, Chinese words are formed by characters.

(2) Cultural Differences

Cultural differences, which underlie the variety of language usage and language habits, have become the key area of translation studies. The ways of thinking, beliefs, attitudes and values of different cultures not only produce failures and misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication, but also pose headaches to translation theorists and translators who are trying to produce the “ideal” target text. Therefore, cultural differences compose the biggest barrier in news translation. Many problems have occurred owing to ignorance of the idiomatic usage of language and to being short of cultural background knowledge.

Each culture shares some common ground with other cultures. However, owing to different ecological and religious environments, strong characteristics of each culture impact people in different ways.

Chinese culture, represented by Confucianism, is reserved and implicit. Believing in the uniform of human being and the heaven, Chinese people attach importance to harmonious family Influenced by Buddhism, most Chinese people are living a passing life. “To endure” is their way of life. After more than two thousand years of feudality, the Chinese people have a blind faith in the authorities.

The Western culture mainly originates from three sources: the Greek culture, the Roman culture and the Hebrew culture. The Greek culture advocates personal freedom and emphasizes science and research; the Roman culture proposes democracy and legal systems, and appreciates expansionism, which is fully reflected by the aggressiveness in the American society the Hebrew culture, also known as the culture of religion and philosophy, calls for universal fraternity and charities.

1. Application of Translator’s Subjectivity in the Translation of Chinese News

Unlike other translations, news translators should complete the task of translation in a very short time to ensure the timeliness of translation. From the selection of translated text to the understanding of the original to the use of specific translation strategies and the reappearance of the aesthetic value of translation, the translator’s subjectivity is reflected in all stages of the translation process.

3.1 The embodiment of translator"s subjectivity in the process of translation

3.1.1 Pre-translation

The translator’s subjectivity begins with the choice of the text. The choice of target texts is influenced by subjective and objective factors. Different translators have their own beliefs, ideas, tastes and knowledge reserves. In choosing text, they must give full play to their unique tendencies and creativity, and choose the text consistent with their own style, belief and specialty. Objectively, the translator’s historical limitations, social needs and political environment will affect the translator’s choice of texts. Not all news needs translation from English to Chinese. Translators should play the role of “filters” for those materials that are not suitable for external communication. While choosing the text to be filtered, the translator should give full play to the translator’s subjective initiative, deeply understand the subjective and objective environment of news, and accurately understand and understand the news intention.

3.1.2 While-translation

After text selection and reading comprehension, it will enter the stage of transforming text information. In this process, the translator gives full play to the subjectivity and creativity according to the readers’ social and psychological characteristics, and reproduces the original text in the target language. The subjectivity of the translator depends on multiple factors: the translator’s understanding of the original culture, the culture of the target language, the purpose and attitude of translation, the translation thoughts and Strategies of the translator and so on.

Chinese news 1：中国游泳选手傅园慧在里约奥运会女子（100米）仰泳半决赛中游出个人最好成绩后的夸张反应成为网络热点。她在接受央视记者采访时说：“我已经用了洪荒之力。”

English Translation 1: A new Internet meme has emerged after Chinese swimmer Fu Yuanhui reacted  exaggeratedly to her personal best performance in Rio 2016 women’s backstroke  semi-final. ”I’ve been utilizing prehistorical powers.” She told CCTV reporter.

”洪荒” here uses the word "prehistorical", its English interpretation is “belonging to or existing in times before recorded history”.

This translation merely emphasized the early formation of the earth. The concept of prehistory did not convey the ridicule of the interviewees who expressed “spare no effort”. Maybe the translation is seemingly simple, it conceals the translator"s different understanding of translation, the different purposes of translation and the different understanding of culture.

The translator’s subjectivity is mainly reflected in the translator’s translation ideas and the translator’s choice of translation strategies. Since the two languages of English and Chinese belong to different languages, their words, words, sentences, segments, texts, logic and grammar are also different. The translator often uses some techniques such as increasing, deleting, replacing, complements, reorganizing and rewriting in the understanding of the news text and the processing of the target language. Therefore, in the specific translation practice, neither the original news text nor the original text can be lost or distorted. Translation ideas and translation theories guide the translator"s translation activities, so that the translator can choose different translation methods according to the needs of the society and the needs of the readers.

3.1.3 Post-translation

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