On Features And Translation Of English News Headlines

A news story is the most popular and timely access to the rest of the world as a large amount of information is covered by the news media. However, owing to the fact that people nowadays are using information in an age and society where information is explosively expanding while time is pressing, most people would only select a news story for extended reading by the headline that interests them. In other words, news headlines play a critical role in drawing the attention of readership in news reports. Therefore, the study of news headlines, especially, English news headline, deserves further attention and research by journalists and language workers, especially those who translate news items between Chinese and English.Every newspaper has its own way to convey information, serious or sensational. Although the headline-writing styles vary from one newspaper to another, the requirements and purposes are universal for all of them.In view of the prominent features of news headlines, this thesis makes a study of newspaper headline features in terms of graphological, linguistic, stylistic and rhetorical devices, illustrated with sample headlines collected from textbooks and a wide range of newspapers. Based on these requirements, this thesis attempts to probe into the translation of news headlines from the perspective of Communicative Translation and Semantic Translation..This thesis consists of four chapters, which are closely related to each other to support the main purpose of this study. A preview of this thesis is shown as follows:Chapter One is an introduction to news headline. It offers a general description of the news headlines in terms of such aspects as definition, requirements, types, and functions.Chapter Two offers an in-depth analysis of features of newspaper headlines from various angles, including Graphemic and graphological features, lexical features, grammatical and rhetorical features.Chapter three expounds Peter newmark’s communicative translation and semantic translation theory in the application of news headlines translation. This thesis first introduces the similarities and differences of semantic translation and communicative translation, then discusses the criteria of news translation and the application of communicative translation and semantic translation.Chapter Four summarizes the major findings of the present thesis. The author also points out the limitations of the thesis and gives some suggestions for further researches into this field.Through the study of features and translation strategies of English news headlines, this thesis intends to give an overall picture of news headline and prove that CT and ST theory is powerful in accounting for the practice of news headline translation, thus enhancing cross-cultural communication.