On The Translation Of Chinese Culture-Specific Items In U.S. Newsmagazine: A Cross Culture Communication Perspective

Globalization makes people in different cultures closer and closer, so translation becomes the bridge of cross-culture communication. Through translation, China may understand the world better and be understood better. As the U.S. top two newsmagazines, Time and Newsweek has the largest circulation and readers in the world. Its language, especially, the words about Chinese culture-specific items, plays an important role in spreading Chinese culture and shaping Chinese international image.This dissertation makes a tentative study on the English translation of Chinese culture-specific items in the U.S. newsmagazines from the cross-cultural communication perspective. After giving the definition and characteristics of Chinese culture-specific items, the author discusses the interrelationship between language and culture, culture and translation, translation and cross-culture communication. Christian Nord argues that"Translating means comparing cultures."(Nord 1997:34) Source-language text is the start of translation. Whether the target language text is SL-oriented or TL-oriented is the touchstone of translation. So the author introduces two dialectic culture-related concepts domestication and foreignization, and Western and Chinese scholars study on culture-specific translation methods, which construct the theoretical basis of this thesis. With detailed analysis and abundant examples, the author groups the Chinese culture-specific items in the Time and Newsweek according to its types and adopted translation methods. After analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of each translation method, the author points out foreignization is the main means adopted by the U.S. newsmagazines in dealing with Chinese culture-specific items. As the primary choice of translation strategies, foreignization serves to retain the cultural flavor of the source language, and help extend the influence of Chinese culture in international communication. Nevertheless, domestication also deserves the translators'consideration in that it can eliminate cultural conflict and achieve intelligibility of the target readers. Since the foreignization strategy is preferred by the U.S. journalists and editors when rendering Chinese culture-specific items, the author believes that at least 3 factors—readership, news value and ideology, contribute to this preference. Owing to the U.S. ideology toward China, many false and insufficient translations are produced.In the end, the author holds that the U.S. journalists and editors, as the cross-culture communicators, should not only have high bilingual ability and rich culture knowledge, but also have high cross-culture consciousness and social responsibility and social morality.