Media Translation and Cultural Soft Power

【Abstract】Media translation is a kind of applied translation，it is the symbol of a countrys development，and the demonstration of its cultural soft power.This essay mainly talks about how does media translation affect a countrys cultural soft power from three forms of media translation—news，movie and television，newspapers and magazines.

【Key words】media translation； information； cultural soft power

Translation is a cross-cultural activity，an important way of cultural delivery and exchange.Media translation is no exception，it also helps transmit a countrys culture and ideology to the world，improve its international status.

“Soft power” is a concept developed by Joseph Nye to describe the power to attract and co-opt rather than coerce，it contains three aspects：social culture，political value and diplomatic policy.Social culture is the basic one，the achievement of soft power must depend on culture.[1]A Chinese expert Wang Huning also said that “regard culture as a kind of soft power is a new concept in the current international politics.”[2]Cultural soft power reflects in one countrys cultural influence and cohesion，and media translation is critical in the promotion of cultural soft power.Ill explore the relationship between media translation and cultural soft power from three aspects.

The first is movie and television translation.Movie and television belongs to mass media，processes the largest audience and valuable ideas.In order to help transmit Koreas movie and television，open up the foreign market，Korean government set up audio track company，provided almost full cost subsidies for its foreign language translation and production.Now Korean films are very popular in Asian，strong “Korean Wave” is sweeping through larger part of the world which entitled Korea the fifth exporter of cultural production and service.[3]All of these efforts greatly improve the national image of Korea.Japanese government also attaches great importance to its new culture，such as anime，music and fashion.In 2006，Japanese former prime minister Taro Aso stated in a speech that “building a countrys reputation just as enterprise creating its famous brand，and creating famous brand must use the power of popular culture.”[4]Therefore，the population of Japanese animation film and television products is definitely not by accident.So movie and TV translation help spread a countrys culture and enhance its cultural soft power.

The second is news translation.Based on the facts，News aims to convince the public of their culture and values exactly and timely.Western countries have established huge broadcast networks.The four big news agencies—Ruters，AFP，AP and UPI take 80% of the world news circulation，transmit over 90% news to the world.The reason why developed countries media monopolize the world news transmission lies in both their media hard power and cultural soft power.[5]Many Chinese news websites such as CCTV，China Daily present us the latest news，the English versions have been praised worldwide as well.So news translation is an effective way of culture exchanges，its also the most forceful expressions of a countrys cultural soft power.

The third is newspapers and magazines translation.Different from the two above，this is a written form of information transmission and its more intuitive than other media types.You may think that less people are reading newspapers or magazines today，so they are not as important as before.But look at American famous newspapers and magazines --The Washington Post，TIME，Fortune… they still have a large number of readers and tremendous influence.America printed and issued more than 200 foreign language newspapers with 34 different languages，and its newspaper circulation ranks the first in the world.In 2008，America owned 12 of the most famous 15 periodicals，ranking the top 10 in the world.Various translations of American cultural products reflect its strong cultural influence.Newspapers and magazines is still a powerful media，its translation can bring us a new perspective to national cultural soft power.

Media is the carrier and the major factor of cultural soft power，we should inject much more culture information with our own features into media transmission.Through high quality of media translation and effective transmission strategies，we will improve our media soft power and enhance our cultural soft power greatly.

Reference：

[1]王玉瑋.中國電視劇傳播與國家文化軟實力的提升[J].西南民族大學學報，2010（3）.

[2]李敏.文化外交與地方對外文化交流[J].理論學刊，2010（2）.

[3]劉舸.軟實力的提升與中國對外文化傳播[J].求索，2010.

[4]Steven Lochs，Welcome to Internet，the First Global Colony，in The New York Times，January 9，2000.

[5]蔣曉麗，李建華.文化軟實力與傳媒軟實力—對改革開放以來中國傳媒發展的思考[J].湘潭大學學報，2008.

作者簡介：

段蕾，女（1991.2-），漢族，河南舞鋼人，北華大學公共外語教育學院2014級碩士研究生在讀，研究方向：英語筆譯。