A Study On Chinese Translation Of English News From Register Perspective

With the acceleration of global integration, international communication has become more and more frequent. A great deal of information needs to be conveyed by news media. English news, as one of the most important channels for us to know the world, transmits information to people rapidly and effectively in its unique way. Chinese translation of English news plays a pivotal role in the exchanges between the West and China. Therefore the research on Chinese translation of English news is of great importance.Register theory, as one of the most important part of systemic functional linguistics, has been applied to many research areas with its special features and powerful functions, including the translation area. In translation, the target text must present the register features of the source text, including the field, the tenor and the mode features. By the application of register theory to translation, language specific variables should be analyzed in the cultural and situational contexts by combing with the ideational meaning, interpersonal meaning and textual meaning of language.With the guidance of the register theory, the thesis makes an analysis of English news using a qualitative method and discusses the principles and strategies of English news translation. The author first reviews the related studies on register theory, register variables and its application to translation, and then makes a brief survey of English news, including its definition, classifications, functions and linguistic features. After analyzing the register features of English news, the author discusses the translation principles including fidelity, legibility, suitability and promptness, and provides the strategies of equivalence in field, equivalence in tenor and equivalence in mode from register perspective. Finally, in the conclusion part, the author summarizes the main points of this research and its significance.The result illustrates: register theory is applicable in Chinese translation of English news. The register approach that applies to English news provides a new perspective to the study of translation practice of English, which will play an increasingly important role in the further research.