On The Equivalence Strategies Of E-C News Headlines Translation From The Perspective Of Register Theory

News is a kind of text utilizing different media like newspaper, radio and internet etc.to record and transmit information. In the21st century, with the rapid development ofworld economy and science and technology, news has permeated into all walks of life,assigning vital influence to humans’ life. Thus, news headlines, as an importantcomponent of news, play an important role in revealing the news content, evaluating thecontent as well as attracting readers. After experiencing a long-time development, newsheadlines have gradually evolved into unique forms, among which the lexis and grammaretc. bear the attentive value and communicative value. Recently, culture communicationis becoming increasingly frequent, and accordingly the news interaction between Chinaand West is being on the rise. As a result, much more attention is being paid to theEnglish news headline translation based on such a backdrop.Undoubtedly, Halliday’s Systematic Functional Grammar, as an important branch oflinguistics, has made great contribution to translation researches. The research found thatpeople tended to adopt various kinds of language types in different contexts. In general,the scope these linguistic varieties constitute in concrete contexts is named as register. InHalliday’s view, register “can be defined as a configuration of semantic resources that themember of a culture is typically associated with a situation type”(Halliday,1978:111), aninterface between the social system and linguistic system. Register is composed of field,tenor and mode, organically integrating three metafunctions—ideational, interpersonaland textual functions, which in fact is about to give a comprehensive consideration to theintralinguistic meaning and its social meaning.Register theory, a scientific way, can be used to study translation equivalence,avoiding the subjective arbitrariness, and then assessing the “faithfulness” in thetranslation. By means of the practices of English news headline translation, this thesis, interms of register markers and register variables, attempts to base the register equivalencebetween the original and the target on ideational, interpersonal and textual functions. Thisthesis aims to explore the equivalence strategies for E-C news headlinestranslation within Halliday’s register theory framework, particularly the field, tenor andmode. This thesis consists of an introduction, the main body and a conclusion. Its maincontents are as follows:The first part is introduction, which mainly generalizes and summarizes the relevantregister theory studies and the studies of combination between register and translationand then points out the significance of analyzing English news headline translation fromthe angle of register theory, and discloses the theoretical value and practical value. Atabroad, some scholars, such as Gregory, Julian House, Mona Baker as well as Hatim andMason etc., have applied the Register Theory into translation studies and proposed theirideas. In addition, the studies in this regard at home have been started, and some ideasalso have been posed, which are mainly concerned about the importance of RegisterTheory in the translation studies, the translating process and the translation judgment.Therefore, for the theoretical value, this thesis aims to offer the detailed operationmethods and translation strategies for the Chinese translation studies of English newsheadlines. For the pragmatic value, an agreeable translation of English news headlinestranslation is quite beneficial to the news spread and the expansion of cultural exchangesbetween China and the West.The second part is the main body, which is made up of three chapters:Chapter One, literature review, consists of three parts. The first part will focus onthe Register Theory’s historical development, register variables and the three languagemetafunctions as well as the relationship between variables and metafunctions. Thesecond part expounds the register markers in English news headlines. The third part willdiscuss the headlines definition, features, types and functions in details.Chapter Two focuses on the realization of register equivalence in English newsheadlines translation. Based on the field, tenor, mode and a comprehensive analysis ofregister equivalence of the three variables, in combination with examples of Englishnews headlines translation, the application of register equivalence is scientifically probed.The equivalence in the field in the English-Chinese news headlines translation is mainlyrealized by lexical choice and transitivity patterns, tenor by mood and modality systemsand mode by formality, nominalization and thematic system. According to Halliday, atranslator should reproduce, in a large sense, the features of the register in the original, toachieve the equivalence by means of bridging the original and the target in the language field, tenor and mode. However, it is not meant to mechanically embody the sourcelanguage text, but the source language register should be reconstructed to meet the tasteof the target language receivers. It is therefore necessary to make full use of the concretedetails of register in a text, with a reference to the concrete features on the level of lexis,grammar, syntax and beyond, so as to comprehensively analyze and observe the sourcetext, consequently setting up a correspondent register in the target language.Chapter Three concentrates on the equivalence strategies of E-C news headlinestranslation from the angle of register. In combination with the examples of headlines inpractice, the possible translation strategies are proposed, including amplification,omission, conversion, imitation, paraphrase, using punctuation and rewriting. During theprocess of E-C news headlines translation, considering that the news headlines noticeablyfunction communicating and propagating, it is necessary to take the externalcommunicative purpose of news headlines into consideration in addition to weigh theinternal linguistic characteristics, and thus, the register correspondence will be realizedon a higher level.The last chapter is conclusion, which makes a summary about the precedingelaboration, and points out the main purpose of this thesis. The current study onequivalence strategies of E-C news headlines translation from the perspective of registertheory is of theoretical and pragmatic significance. For theoretical value, it is designed toprovide the possible and concrete operation means and translation strategies to E-C newsheadlines translation for constructing register in a target language. For pragmatic value,an agreeable translation of English news headlines translation is quite beneficial to thenews spread and the expansion of cultural exchanges between China and the West.Consequently, in the process of translating, the translator should carefully analyze thespecific characteristics of different registers, realizing the register equivalence based onthe three variables, instead of partially seeking the equivalence in forms. Register theory,reasonable and practical, links closely the language functions with language forms, whichcontributes great significance and value to translation studies.