E-C Translation Of Newspaper Lead Based On Nida's Translation Theory

Since the implementation of the reform and open-up policy, China has had more and more chances of communicating with other countries and regions in the world. Translation therefore becomes an indispensable activity in Chinese daily life. Among different kinds of inter-cultural communications, news translation is a new field of translation research. After a relatively thorough investigation, the author finds out that there are not many books or articles on news translation, let alone ones on the translation of some particular parts of news.Among different parts of a news discourse, the lead is the most distinctive feature. It is positioned at the top of news, as not only a summary of the whole news but also a"springboard"to the following story. It performs a key function: to inform readers of the highlight of the news story and to lure them into the main body of a story. Therefore, the lead is of great importance to the whole news. Thus, lead translation is also important. Due to more chances of involving in translating from English to Chinese for news translators or students majoring in news translation, the author chooses English as the source language and Chinese as the target language. Among different media, the author chooses newspaper as the research medium. On the other hand, any practice should be guided by some theory. Since there is much common ground in lead translation and Nida's translation theory, the author discusses the lead translation by applying Nida's translation theory.Therefore, the author concentrates her study on English-Chinese translation of newspaper lead based on Nida's translation theory.This thesis is composed of six chapters:Chapter One explains the purpose of the thesis, carries on a brief illustration on the realistic significance and introduces the source of language data to be used in the thesis to enhance reliability of application. Chapter Two introduces news definition and structure as background knowledge and mainly summarizes the distinctive points of the lead and its importance.Chapter Three reviews Nida's translation theory to be applied to English-Chinese translation of newspaper lead, including Nida's profile and his academic activities as background knowledge, development of his translation thought and his works and the survey of his translation theory, especially dynamic/functional equivalence. Above all, it explains the feasibility of the application of Nida's translation theory to E-C translation of newspaper lead.Chapter Four analyzes the linguistic and cultural differences between the English leads and the Chinese leads on the basis of Nida's views of language and culture, which provides solid foundations for the following studies.Chapter Five offers five suggested strategies for lead translation based on the analysis of linguistic and cultural differences between the English leads and the Chinese leads by applying Nida's translation theory, namely, complete understanding about the source text, cultural awareness, cutting-down, restructuring and rewriting.Chapter Six summarizes the whole thesis, objectively states the possible contributions of the thesis to the field of English-Chinese newspaper lead translation and points out the limitations of the thesis with suggestions for future research efforts.