新闻英语标题的特点与翻译对策(8)

英语论文,英语专业本科毕业论文。

use a great number of midget words to contain the headline in a limited space.

Midget word is vivid, flexible and comprehensive. For example,

Earthquake Hits Sichuan Province大地震袭击四川地区 (hit = attack)

Strikers in Clash with Police 罢工群众同警方发生冲突(clash =conflict , skirmish)

Semantic transformations are inescapable when dealing with news headlines. The incentive for it is a huge amount of the so called headline vocabulary in the English language, often referred to as headlinese, which demands certain modifications when making a translation. Here is a list of midget words: ban, bid, claim, crash, cut, hit, move, probe, quit, rush, slash. These midget words which can be easily inserted into a headline are characterized by a wide field of their use. It is important to point out that such words have already almost utterly replaced their synonyms in news headlines. Thus, ban taken the place of forbid and prohibit. Wide semantics of headline words demand context-conditioned transformations in the translation.

2.1.2 Shortenings and Figures

Shortenings are often used in headlines which can not only save space but also catch the readers attention. Shortenings s can be divided into two parts: acronyms and lipped words.

Acronym is the connection of the initials of important words in a phrase, e.g. AID =Agency for International Development. Clipping is the result of leaving out some of the letters in the word, e.g. Viet is coming from the word Vietnamese.

Acronyms in headlines are all composed of capital letters to reduce the number of words, and they are mainly divided into three kinds:

(1) The shortened form of some proper nouns:

UNESCO = United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (联合国教科文组织)

EEC = European Economic Community (欧洲经济共同体)

(2) The name of some familiar things:

AIDS=Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syndrome (艾滋病)