Translation of English News Titles and Its Cultural Default Under the Perspective ofTranslation as Adaptation and Selection

【Abstract】：Today， with the deepening of reform and opening up， exchanges between China and the world expand over time. As a main tool for countries to project their images and promote their cultures， news plays an increasing important role in the aspect of promoting cultural communication and enhancing mutual understanding. In the keen competition of diverse cultures across the world， China must improve its translation quality of news to render the world has a better understanding of what is happening in China. Therefore， studying on the translation of news into English is of great significance.

In daily life， in face of multifarious news reports， people tend to glance over the news titles at first and then decide whether to read on or not due to time constraints， and improper translation of titles will lead to misunderstandings which sometimes may cause severe consequences. Therefore news title as the soul of a piece of news， its translation needs more attention from translators.

As cultures vary with different countries and regions， the phenomenon of cultural default is common among news titles translation， which becomes a major difficulty for translators.

At present there have already been a lot of studies on news translation in the academic world， but studies on news titles translation are relatively scarce. So this paper is going to take news titles as research object， choose cases of news titles translation from China Daily as language database， take the perspective of the approach of Translation as Adaptation and Selection to study the phenomenon of cultural default in news titles translation and discuss strategies for translating news titles. It is hoped that this thesis can provide some guidance to the area of news titles translation.

Key words： news titles translation; cultural default; Translation as Adaptation and Selection

[Background]

Under the influence of both economic globalization and political multi-polarization， the world has come into a dissemination globalization era， a major part of which is the dissemination of international news and relevant comments. On the one hand， governments regard global dissemination and publicity as a necessary means to protect national interests and to promote their own external policies. On the other hand， translation becomes more and more important in modern society because news from different cultural backgrounds have got to be understood by people from different countries. Such understanding needs high-quality translation of publicity materials， especially news translation， in order to form a firm foundation of cultural exchanges.

However， in face of all sorts of news， people tend to decide whether that news deserve a careful and thorough reading by browsing news headlines first due to reasons like limitation of time. In addition， inappropriate translation of news headlines will also cause misunderstandings. Also， a headline is nevertheless the soul of a piece of news. In light of the above， this essay mainly discusses the translation of headlines.

Owing to differences in culture between different countries and regions， the phenomenon of cultural default is quite common among news headlines translation， which is a major difficulty for translators.

The theory –Translation as Adaptation and Selection， is proposed on the basis of a series of studies and theories （including Relevance Theory） at home and abroad. Therefore， this paper is going to cope with the cultural default in news headlines translation with this theory， and further discuss strategies of translating English news headlines.

Overseas researches pioneered the research of news titles translation study as early as some scholars noticed the characteristics of news titles are different from the styles which prevail in ordinary texts， and they also examined the disciplines of titles translation from various aspects. An Indian scholar R.M.K. Sinha contributed to the news titles translation from English to Hindi by writing an article Translationg News Headlines from English to Hindi， in which Sinha proposed some practical strategies to solve the problem of translating news headlines from English to Hindi. Apart from Sinha， many other scholars from different countries also dedicate themselves to the development of news titles translation study such as Ennis who studied NHT from English to Spanish.

Recently， more Chinese relevant scholars begin to study news headlines translation. Their study result， including essays—On Cultural Default and Its Translation in Soft Web-news Headlines From the Perspective of Relevance Theory（Shuilong Jiao）， On E-C Translation of News Headlines： From the Perspective of Relevance Theory （Yijun Zeng） and A Relevance-Theoretic Approach to Cultural Default and Its Reconstruction in Translation（ Zhengjun Deng）.

All the above works make great progress in studying news headlines translation，but there are still some limitations in the existing studies for following reasons： most of previous studies either hammer at discussing characteristics and skills of news headlines or focus on E-C translation of news headlines， few people have made study combining news headlines translation、cultural default and the theory of Translation as Adaptation and Selection which is still not familiar to the public.

In consideration of these reasons， this essay will take the perspective of Translation as Adaptation and Selection to probe into its explanatory power in handling the phenomenon of cultural default.

[News Titles Translation and Cultural Default]

Generally speaking， news articles are concise in wording. Regarded as “the abbreviation of the whole news article”， news titles are even more concise and vivid so that they could catch the attention of readers and save space at the same time. English news titles have two major characteristics which differ from the expression ways of common English：

（1） Simple and concise. The writing style of news is firstly manifested by its tendency of using journalistic words; that is， avoiding using long words， difficult words and words of limited meaning. What’s more， omissions and acronyms are very common in English news for the purpose of stuffing as much information as possible in the limited space of titles. News’ restricted amount of space needs short words to save space while the timeliness of news also requires simple and concise wording intitles.

（2） Lively and vivid. News editors tend to use news writing styles such as cultural metaphor and punning to make news titles more different and attractive. One common practice is the personification of places， take “Talks on Africa at No. 10”as an example， here the No.10 refers to the British Government; another practice is coining new words， such as “sit-in， smog and teleceiver，” all of which first appeared in news and then caught on and finally absorbed into dictionaries.

In educational area， though a growing number of journalism departments in universities and colleges begin to set up news translation courses， textbooks specific to the teaching of news translation are fairly rare. In addition， in terms of translation courses for English majors， news translation is only regarded as a special genre among various stylistic translations so that the teaching of it is usually rashly done or the concept is even not mentioned at all.

There are also a lot of problems in today’s news titles translation due to lack of a specific translation system and deficiency of some translators or translation agencies. Existence of these problems make it hard for target readers to fully understand the content and is detrimental for disseminating information about China and Chinese culture to the world.

Chinese professor Dongfeng Wang first gives definition of “cultural default” as “the absence of relevant cultural background knowledge shared by the author and his intended readers”. People from the same social and cultural background have shared background knowledge and they will omit this kind of knowledge for the sake of communication efficiency. The shared knowledge is called “default”.

Default is unavoidable yet necessary in human communication. Yanchun Zhao says，“Where there is communication， there is relevance; where there is relevance， there is default”.

The phenomenon of “cultural default” is very common in news titles translation. In order to increase the interestingness and readability of news， the expressions of English news language are always characterized by flexible and multilayer meanings and specific contexts. This is particularly evident for news titles， in which implied meanings brought by Context of Culture and Context of Situation are beyond count. The phenomenon of“cultural default ”is inevitable in news titles not only because they are under the restraint of simplicity and concision， but also they are written for readers who take English as mother tongue.

Here is an example：

“ No Bill， No Bell（The Times）”

This news headline means that summit meeting between US and Israel achieves no "progress， whose Chinese counterpart is“美以首腦會談不歡而散”. A Chinese reader may feel at loss reading such a headline， while an American reader could definitely catch the point at first glance since their social experience tells them Bill here refers to President Bill Clinton and Bell refers to the nickname of Binyamin Netanyahu， the Israeli Prime Minister.

Therefore， when translating a Chinese news headline into English， translators should pay close attention to the target culture， target background， follow the appetite of English receivers and treat them as the center during the efforts of translation.

The above example shows the phenomenon of cultural default， an original reader and a target reader many have totally different responses and comprehension to those news titles.

From the perspective of verbal communication， the purpose of “default” in news titles is to improve the efficiency of information exchanges and the reason why it could improve communicative efficiency is that both sides of communicators are familiar with implied cultural meaning expressed by the “default” part. Although the default part is not explicitly displayed， it is activated in readers’memory by specific context so that the actual meaning of such default part will be filled up through readers’ cultural knowledge and social experience.

The existence of cultural default in news titles will also enhance their readability and interestingness.

Despite the above values， cultural defaults will also cause some problems， especially to those who take English as foreign language. Due to wide difference in Context of Culture and Context of Situation with those of original readers， target readers will necessarily confront with barrier of understanding as well as communication gap.

[Translation as Adaptation and Selection and Its Application]

The concept of Translation as Adaptation and Selection is proposed by Chinese professor Gengshen Hu. This concept takes a brand new theoretical perspective to demonstrate the possibility and feasibility of applying Darwin's theory of evolution to translation. Hu believes that “Translation as adaptation and selection; translator as the center; optimal translation is a cumulative result of translators by adapting to the translational eco-environment.”

Gengshen Hu chooses a proper point of view——integration of people and environment， which means reunification of translation and Context of Culture. News translation against the background of cultural globalization is by no means a simple procedure of language transformation of news texts. Substantially， it is a procedure of translator-oriented “adaptation” and “selection”. Furthermore， as the core spirit of the news texts， news headlines require much more subjective initiative of translators when translating as well as adaptating and selecting in face of cultural default.

The adaptation here includes adaptation to linguistic factors and to non-linguistic factors. Take cultural default into consideration， we will focus on the adaptation to non-linguistic factors. “As a cross-cultural communication activity， translation not only refers to language transformation or translator’s individual activity， it is also limited by various external and internal factors such as history， society， culture， politics and aesthetic taste.（Jun Xu， 2002）” In view to the most difficult point in translating news headlines——phenomenon of cultural default， one of the non-linguistic factors that effects translator most is cognitive environment. Translation of news involves not only the source text， source language， target text， target language as well as translators and receivers from different societies with different cultural backgrounds， but also the different cognitive environment and cognitive ability of translators and receivers. Therefore a translator should be bilingual and thoroughly familiar with different cultures at the meantime. Only by meeting these requirements could a translator find out optimal relevance; make accurate comprehension of foreign receivers’ reading expectation and their cognitive environment; convey the intention of source news headlines to foreign receivers accurately; and remove the obstacles of cultural default confronted by foreign receivers when understanding the news headlines.

Based on the above discussion， translators can select following strategies when translating news headlines：

First， representation. When the source language is close to target language in language expression and semantic meaning， using this strategy could not only retain the biggest relevance in communication of source language， but also keep the artistic performance of source language. Here is an example：

“全國兩會臨近 人大政協清理門戶”

“Legislative， advisory assemblies clean house” "（China Daily， 2015.3.2 ）

Second， substituting. This strategy can be employed when source language and target language use different symbols to describe a same thing while they boast similar rhetorical styles so that we can use communicable symbols to submit that of source language. “ ‘Substituting ’could also be called as ‘change’， one can smooth the obstruction by changing a word. Substituting is an effective readable optimum method.（Miqing Liu，1999） ” "Here is an example：

“科學家成功使人體細胞‘返老還童’”

“Scientists successfully turn back the clock in old human cells”（China Daily 2015.2.17）

Third， recasting. This strategy is applicable to circumstances when one want to keep the default part. By utilizing various translation skills to resolve understandings and rebuild semantic association， the translator may reinforce the communicative effect of two cultures between source language and target language. According to Miqing Liu，recasting is not only a radical and flexible approach to handle obstacles caused by word order as well as expression， but also an optimal means to ensure the readability of target language. Here is an example：

“看BBC如何介紹duang”

“Millions share new Chinese character”（ China Daily "2015.3.4）

As for English news titles， its translation should realize equivalent transmission as much as possible. The approach of Translation as Adaptation and Selection can contribute a lot to this translation practice by using various strategies and skills to find out the biggest and optimal relevance， to strengthen the contextual effect， and to enhance the role of news titles in news reports as a finishing touch.

[Conclusion]

News titles translation covers a prominent position in press translation. This thesis， combined characteristics of English news titles and elements that affect its translation——focus on the phenomenon of cultural default——and then explores news titles translation from the perspective of the approach of Translation as Adaptation and Selection， which is proved to be helpful to cope with the phenomenon of cultural default and to provide new insights into the process of news titles translation. Successful translation of news titles is to make source news titles producer’s intention and target news titles audience’s expectation meet， to achieve this， one of the most effective way for the translator is to translate as adapt and select.