A Study Of E-C Translation Of Metaphors In News English

This thesis studies the metaphor translation in news English from the perspective of Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory. As an important communicative tool for the masses, news becomes more indispensable in people’s life. Under the impact of the more and more frequent economic and cultural communication between China and the west, news translation becomes more and more important. The widely use of metaphor in news English, on the one hand, makes it easy for news writers to convey the information explicitly and vividly to the public. On the other hand, it makes the news translation much harder. It is true that metaphor translation in news English largely affects the quality of the whole news translation.By carrying out a survey on the metaphor in news English, this thesis analyzes the metaphor’s types and functions. Meanwhile, this thesis analyzes the difficulties of metaphor translation in news English from the perspective of linguistics and culture. For one thing, the lack of lexical equivalence and semantic differences of metaphors bring some obstacles for metaphor translation. For another thing, metaphors in different cultural backgrounds bear quite different cultural connotations, which also makes the translation of metaphors in news English very difficult. To deal with this problem, this thesis suggests that the guidelines of "Functional Equivalence Theory" should be followed in metaphor translation. Based on the equivalence of meaning and style, Functional Equivalence Theory emphasizes that the receptors should respond to the target language message with the same manner the source language receptors do to the original. It means that, in the translation process, the choice of translation method largely depends on the receptors’acceptable level. Then, by analyzing the specific examples, this thesis tries to put forward some concrete criteria and principles of metaphor translation and suggest some corresponding translating methods.