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A Study of Translated News from the Perspective of Readability

  • The Journal of Chinese Cultural Studies
  • 2014, (25), pp.435-461
  • DOI : 10.18212/cccs.2014..25.017
  • Publisher : The Society For Chinese Cultural Studies
  • Research Area : Humanities > Chinese Language and Literature > Chinese Literature > Chinese Culture
  • Published : August 30, 2014

Sujung Kang 1

1숙명여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The focus of texts moves from a source text to a target text, as the focus of translation studies has shifted from ‘translation as a text’ to ‘translation as a cultural behavior.’ Therefore, a source text is just one of various information sources for translators, not the overriding basis for translation. Today, the success of translation depends on the level of readers’ acceptance of translated texts. The perspective that a translated text should function properly in a target culture according to its purpose (skopos) is well established in studies on translation of news texts. By nature, ‘readability’ is a critical feature of news texts, which are designed to deliver information in written or oral forms to the public. At issue is that the abundant information of news texts in foreign media may have negatively affect readability for the audience, due to time (for broadcasting) or space (for newspaper) constraints, whensource texts are literally translated in target languages. Consequently, most media simply preserves the value of the news and changes a source text for a better understanding of the audience. This is especially common in Chinese media. This study suggests characteristics of changes from source texts for ‘readability’ in Chinese media, and explains translation in China using predictable theories based on the examination of various translation perspectives. In general, Chinese scholars employ functionalism while Korean scholars use an ideology approach in studies on translated news texts. However, this study focuses on readability as a factor to changes of translated news texts, and explores how readability is achieved in the process of translation and how it is related to journalistic factors in China.

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