Register Equivalence In Chinese Translation Of Hard News Headlines

Because of the significance and attentiveness of hard news, it is being given more and more attention. Hard news is also known as spot news or immediate news for its timeliness. It mainly focuses on the real-time events of politics, economy, science and technology, crimes and accidents. Hard news headlines (HNHs) as the soul of hard news count a lot in delivering information and especially in attracting readers’attention. In order to get Chinese readers know the main idea of a piece of English hard news at first glance of its headline, an appropriate Chinese translation of English HNHs is first badly needed. However, much attention and effort have been devoted to the skills and techniques of English-Chinese translation of hard news but little attention is given to Chinese translation of HNHs and few of them are studied with a systematic theoretical support. Thesis attempts to study Chinese translation of HNHs from the perspective of register theory, it may provide the translator with a constructive and practical guidance and help in this aspect.Halliday in his work Language as Social Semiotic proposes his new view on register and defines register as "the semantic configuration that is typically associated with the situational type in question"(1978:23). He integrates language with its situation and believes that register is "variations of language according to use"(1985:41) and the ultimate embodiment of language and context. Register mainly consists of field, tenor and mode. Field refers to what is going on, tenor emphasizes the relationship between the participants and mode is the channel and media of speech actions. Register equivalence is the most important factor in achieving and evaluating the English-Chinese translation of HNHs.Register markers reflect different registers of various texts. They are so vital in achieving register equivalence in Chinese HNHs that it is necessary to identify register markers of source HNHs first. Due to the conciseness of news headlines, register markers are chiefly analyzed from three levels. First, at the phonetic level, register markers can be identified according to its abbreviations. Next, at the word level, register markers can be picked out easily in terms of the formality of words adopted in the HNH. If many singular words and technical terms are found in a HNH instead of set phrases, it is no doubt that its register is a formal one and meanwhile field and ideational function is highlighted. Last, at the sentence level, register markers are determined with respect to the simple sentence or complex sentence, complete sentence or elliptical sentence.Based on the information delivered by register markers, which variable of register is emphasized should be determined. Then the corresponding register equivalence should be checked to see whether it is properly reproduced in Chinese HNH by considering its relevant lexico-grammar. Specifically, equivalence in field can be judged from its transitivity systems, equivalence in tenor can be decided from its mood and modality, and equivalence in mode is figured out from its thematic structure, information structure or cohesion.Through quantitative analysis of authentic HNHs, a conclusion is made that register theory is very useful and practical in Chinese translation of English HNHs and it highlights its advantages by taking register equivalence into consideration and achieving the maximum equivalence of Chinese and English HNHs. Thesis may not cover all the HNHs of different styles due to the limited resource, but the methods and register theory adopted in thesis are hoped to be helpful for those who are interested in news headlines, and register theory also can be employed to study the translation of soft news headlines.