On The Translation Of English News Headlines From The Perspective Of Register Theory

With the frequent exchange between China and Western countries, especially in the field of culture, Chinese readers have more access to authentic English news from different channels, such as magazine, TV, newspaper and Internet. As an indispensible component of a news report, the translation of news headlines is drawing much more attention. Domestic research in this area is underway, however, with its focus largely on procedures and techniques to the translation of English news headlines.The present thesis attempts to probe into English news headline translation from the perspective of register analysis. On the basis of his register theory, Halliday claims that the translator should take into account all three variables of register (field, tenor and mode) to analyze the source text comprehensively, and then in the target text, the translator should reproduce the register features of the source text, properly showing the corresponding field, tenor and mode. In Halliday's view, the equivalence between the source text and target text, in essence, is based on the equivalence of three metafunctions of language; that is ideational metafunction, interpersonal metafunction and textual metafunction.Drawing on insights from literature review and an adequate data collection from various channels, this thesis proposed a theoretical framework based on Halliday's register theory. Under the direction of this theoretical framework and adopting a qualitative methodology, the author analyzes how to realize register equivalence of field, tenor and mode respectively in the translation of English news headlines.Through analysis and discussion, the author makes a conclusion that the register theory is a very useful tool in analyzing English news headlines and the equivalence of register should be taken into account in the process of translation.