New Words In Chinese Translation Of The Descriptive Study

Since the reform and opening-up policy was released in 1978, enormous new words or neologisms have sprung up in the Chinese language. Some of these words are referents for new things or concepts with Chinese characteristics. Most of them are newly coined words in Chinese language, and of course a portion of them are existing words reloaded with new meanings. There are also many borrowed words. In the more recent years, with China's entry into many international organizations such as WTO and the expansion of foreign contacts, there is an urgent need to promote the image of China. Thus a lot of Chinese words and expressions imbedded in the Chinese culture have to be translated into English in order to, introduce China to our foreign friends, which has given impetus to English translation of Chinese neologisms. Since then, translation of Chinese neologisms has aroused many translators' attention. And at the same time, some researchers and scholars of translation studies have devoted a lot to neologisms translation in China.Noticeably, translation studies also made a great stride in the past thirty years. The focus has shifted from the pure linguistic level to the cultural level, from the microscopic angle to the macroscopic angle, and from prescriptive to descriptive in order to investigate the influence of the broad issues as cultural context, time, purpose and other extralinguistic elements in translation. Chinese neologism translation in China cannot be separated from the current cultural context, cultural psychology, and our political and economic system. And these factors are still undergoing drastic changes. Globalization also makes a far-reaching impact upon our life and bringsabout enormous new words and expressions. In translation practice, these extralinguistic elements often affect the translator' choice of translation strategies (domestication, foreignization, or the coexistence of the two) and the translation product. This thesis tries to use the descriptive approach with the new development in translation studies as its theoretic support, and tends to reveal the status quo of extralinguistic elements and their influence on the English translation of Chinese neologisms.