Abstract

News is one of the indispensable tools for us to understand the world around us in our daily life. English news accounts for a large proportion in international news reports. It helps Chinese people get a better understanding of foreign development in culture, economy and politics. Hence, the translation of English news tends to be particularly important. A news headline is a summary of the whole report which is of crucial importance. Editors always make use of various rhetorical devices in news headlines to make them attractive which brings challenges to translators. British translator Peter Newmark’s semantic translation and communicative translation theory can help solve the problems met by the translators when translating rhetorical devices of English news headlines effectively. Semantic translation theory can guide translators to better preserve the rhetorical characteristics of the original headlines and communicative translation theory can guide translators to transmit information of the original headlines more accurately. Under the guidance of these two theories, this paper conducts an overall discussion on the translation of English news headlines with rhetorical devices. It aims at finding better translation methods to maintain as much as possible the rhetorical characteristics and function of original headlines and accurately transmit information.     

Key words: news headlines; rhetorical devices;semantic translation; communicative translation

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1 Introduction-1

2 Literature Review-2

2.1 Semantic Translation(ST) and Communicative Translation(CT)-2

2.2 Previous Studies on the Translation of English News Headlines-4

3 General Description of English News Headlines-4

3.1 Definition of English News Headlines-4

3.2 Functions of English News Headlines-5

3.3 Rhetorical Devices of English News Headlines-5

4 ST and CT in the Translation of Rhetorical Devices of English News Headlines-6

4.1 Difficulties in the Translation of Rhetorical Devices-6

4.2 ST and CT in the Translation of Different Rhetorical Devices-6

5 Conclusion-11

References-13