A Functionalist Approach To The Translation Of Journalistic Writings

This thesis aims to analyze the translation of journalistic writings from a functionalist perspective in the hope of elaborating the application area of functionalism and finding a workable guiding theory for news translation.As the most important theory of functionalism, Skopostheorie consists of three rules, namely, the Skopos rule, the coherence rule and the fidelity rule, in that order in terms of importance. In the process of translational action, the initiator decides the communicative purpose. In ideal situations, the initiator gives the translator a translation brief, which includes such essentials as the (intended) text function(s), the target-text addressee(s), the (prospective) time and place of text reception, the medium through which the text will be transmitted as well as the motive for the production of the text.Given the peculiarities of the area of journalism, including timeliness and tendentiousness of news as well as the common practice of cross-media and edited translation in reality, functionalist principles and ideas may be very effectively applied in the translation of journalistic writings. Functionalism thus plays a unique role in guiding news translation.