A Comparative Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of The New York Times's China-related News Stories: A Skopos Theoretical Perspective

With the deepening of reform and further development of globalization, News has become an important way of communication. Chinese readers also need foreign newspapers and magazines to know better about the world. Therefore the quality of E-C translation is vital for effective communication. Besides, the translation of News is not merely a transferring from one language to another but an activity focusing more on target readers. Thus the translation should meet the needs and expectations of target readers. The New York Times (NYT) launched its Chinese edition in July 2012. It serves as a window for Chinese to know better about the world, especially the western countries' attitude towards them. Hence the quality and accuracy of NYT's E-C translation plays a considerable role in China's interactions with the West That accounts for why I have chosen NYT's E-C translations of some of its own China-related news stories for a thorough analysis in this thesis.As for the theoretical framework for this project, I have chosen the Skopos theory. This theory is centrally concerned about target readers and the purpose which translation is meant to serve. As such, it is different from the traditional or linguistically-oriented ones and is particularly apt for studying translations of news. In addition, Skopos theory does not think too much of an equivalence between source text and target text, and is hence better suited to deal with translations that are more flexible in their choice of strategies. Guided by the theory, my interpretation would attach the same importance to both the target readers and the source language readers.Subjecting to a Skopos-guided examination the characteristics of the chosen NYT news stories in terms of their titles, linguistic styles and structures, the thesis identifies the requirements of journalistic translation by following the three principles of Skopos theory, namely, Skopos rule, Coherence rule and Fidelity rule. The thesis also demonstrates that NYT's E-C Translation is sometimes not correctly rendered or subject to excessive rewriting due to factors like politics, ideology or cross-cultural rhetoric. Therefore I myself have had three of NYT's source texts translated without referring to its own "official" renditions, and then compare my versions with NYT's, exposing both its justified and unjustified handling in the process of translation.