On C-E Translation Of Soft News From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Nowadays, the world has stepped into an era of globalization and Internet with the intensifying economic integration and fast developing information industry. The communication between countries has become more and more frequent. One of the important ways to spread information and culture is news reports. Therefore, news translation affects much of the international exchange. Soft news is human-interest reports, which can easily appeal readers with its vivid style. The world would better learn about China’s society and culture by it, so the English translation of soft news has become increasingly important.Soft news translation is not only a transformation process between two languages, but also a process of adapting translated text to the needs of target language readers. Furthermore, it is a cross-cultural communication process. Translators must take flexible translation strategies to translate soft news that differs from hard news translation. Therefore, functionalist skopos theory,which breaks through the traditional equivalence-based translation theories, can provide important and applicable guidance for the translation of soft news.This thesis firstly analyzes the characteristics and translation of soft news, and then introduces the functionalist skopos theory fully, including its representatives and significant theories. Focus is on cultural factors and the importance of translator’s dominant position. With the bilingual soft news selected from the website of http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/language tips/, the thesis also argues skopos theory is a good and appropriate guidance for soft news translation and puts forward four translation strategies guided by the theory, namely, amplification, omission, paraphrase and reorganization.