Translation Of Fuzziness In News Writing

The famous "Sorites Paradox" inflicted a hard blow on the classical two-valued logic theory, on whose pedestal the Aristotle's philosophy was built. Many-valued logic underlying fuzzy theory made its debut, and along with it arose many new disciplines: fuzzy linguistics, fuzzy aesthetics, fuzzy rhetoric, to name just a few. As a matter of fact, fuzziness is an inherent attribute of human languages as well as human thinking. The lack of a clear-cut boundary between daytime and night is a good case in point.However, the main thrust of this thesis is not devoted to a purely linguistic study on a theoretical basis. Rather, built on the theoretical reflections of fuzzy theory, this paper attempts to justify the inevitability of fuzzy phenomena in news writing. More importantly, it is aimed at the tactics on how to translate the fuzzy language in news writing on the assumption that there is a close connection between fuzzy theory and translation studies. Precise thinking and precise language have exerted so immense influence on news writers and editors that precision has long been identified with accuracy and no room is left for fuzziness. Worse still, any deviation from accuracy is dismissed as an egregious sin in journalism. "It hardly seems necessary to make a case for accuracy. It is enough to say that inaccuracies damage credibility", claimed Jack Highton.Joseph Pulitzer, a household word in the journalistic circle, screamed for "Accuracy! Accuracy!! Accuracy!!!" Despite such overwhelming clamors for accuracy, there is ample evidence that fuzzy phenomena do exist and abound in news writing. Quoted from a multitude of influential newspapers and magazines at home and abroad, this thesis lays claim to eleven cases where fuzzy language, or rather, fuzzy phenomena are used at different levels: lexical, syntactic, rhetorical, and stylistic features of news writing.This thesis surely will not confine itself to the list of fuzzy cases but go further to crack the "hard nut"---how to translate the fuzziness in news writing. Little ink, as the case stands, has ever spilled over this crux. Taking the distinctive functions and stylistic features of news writing into consideration, the author sets forth general principles that highlight the qualities of being informative, readable, publishable and Jack Highton, Reporter (1977), 30. Ibid. 30.newsy. Based on the general principles, tactics both regular and strategic are tentatively offered. As is often the case, a translator walking on a tightrope plays dual roles: a submissive servant and a defiant master. In this sense, it is proposed that a blend of regular and strategic tactics should be employed in pursuit of an optimum transfer of information.Admittedly, journalistic translation theory and practice have been rarely explored, much less the translation of fuzziness. Taking fuzziness translation as a case study, the author attempts to make some contribution to the "know-how" of the journalistic translation at large, which for sure calls for more researches.