56- News Translation 新聞翻譯_ L2- Translation Characteristics 新聞翻譯特點 ترجمة الأخبار_ خصائص الترجمة

Nadwah

Transcript

00:00Hello everybody, this is the second lesson on news translation. In today's lesson we'll talk

00:08about news translation characteristics. In general, the main and general characteristics

00:15of news translation is to be accurate in your writing, to be precise, to be timely and updated,

00:25and that you need to have well-rounded knowledge of everything, you need to know something about

00:31everything, and you need to have interesting contents that reflect your own beliefs, your own

00:39political viewpoints. But as I said in the first class, you need to be objective in your writing,

00:46the language you use must be objective language. So let's talk first about the choice of words or

00:54diction. The words you choose should be short and simple. Always go for short words. So you use

01:05about, say about instead of approximately, say ban instead of prohibit, say bar instead of prevent,

01:13and so on. Number two, the abbreviations. Always use abbreviations. You say UNESCO instead of United

01:20Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. You don't mention this UNESCO in its full

01:30name. You say memo instead of memorandum, and so on. You say quake instead of earthquake, flu instead of

01:37influenza, and you also use contracted form like Intel instead of international. All this in order to

01:44save space on the page. You also use synecdoche. You use the part in order to indicate the whole. So

01:56you say the White House, referring to the American government. You say Beijing, referring to the Chinese

02:02government. You say Pentagon, referring to the National Defense Department of the USA. You say Downing

02:09street number 10, referring to the British government. So you use the part to refer to the whole, and vice

02:15versa. You always use specific and short and vivid words, like hurry, instead of writing, walk hurriedly.

02:26And issue, instead of controversial issue. And balloon, meaning swell out like a balloon. You use just one

02:32word but use it as a verb. So swell out like a balloon, like the country's population could balloon from 20

02:39million today to 83 million in 2025. You also use new and trendy words. And of course, what is new today will

02:51be old tomorrow. And what was new yesterday is old today. So for example, back in the 60s, words like

03:01moonwalk, moonfall, moon rock, moonscape, moon ship, and all of that, all these words were new words back in

03:09the 1960s, but they are old now. So always try to come up with new words and trendy words. Take for example,

03:19this line, it's written by an Iranian politician. We are struggling against autocracy for democracy by means of

03:30zerocracy. Zerocracy. Here is his making of this word. It's coming from xerox. So what he means is that by

03:40photocopying their documents and writings about democracy and spreading this, distributing these

03:50pamphlets to people. So use always new and trendy words. You can also use loan words, words

04:00taken and borrowed from foreign language, like the same qua non-of. It's taken from

04:07Latin, it means peace, it means must, and so on. But of course, you have to use these foreign words

04:15in the right context. Also, you can use sometimes, even though it's not really recommended to use any

04:25slang in your news coverage, but sometimes slang used in colloquial language, colloquial language used

04:36in the headline when there is something really big that you need, devastating, for example, and you need

04:43to get the attention of your audience. Like, look at this New York Post headline, and the main headline

04:51on the front page, what the heck are you up to, Mr. President. Also, you can use jargon, again,

05:00in the right context. About this, the sentence structure, choose it, you go. Always use simple and clear.

05:08Always use simple and clear. Always use the simple form, the subject, the verb, and the object.

05:18And you use always short sentences. The sentence should be in English around 16 to 18 words.

05:28Try not to use more than 20 words per sentence, even though sometimes when it's used in the lead,

05:36the first paragraph of the news, sometimes it goes much longer than that, because the lead should come

05:41in one sentence. As I said, use the normal word order, subject, verb, and the object. The structure

05:50of the news reports starts with the headline. Sometimes there is sub-headlines, but this is not

05:56necessarily, it's just optional. Then the lead, the lead should be only one paragraph, one sentence in

06:03English. In Chinese, it can come in two sentences. Then the body of the report, and there is a conclusion,

06:09but again, this is optional. And later on, we'll talk about each of these parts.

06:15Let's talk a little bit about all of these news reporting elements. The headline has to be

06:21eye-catching, expressing the content, and use as few words as possible in the headline. Don't try to use

06:30write a long headline unless it's an inside story, but the front page has to be a short headline, a few,

06:40just a few words, as few as possible. The lead, in the lead, you need to have your five Ws. Your five Ws,

06:49who, in this priority, who, what, when and where, and why. So who, what, where, when, and why. In the

07:00body of the report, you also can give more information as to how. Add to this five Ws, how.

07:09This, in the news report, that you only stick to facts, use objective language, and you can give

07:17more information about the subject you are writing about. Story background. Then in the conclusion,

07:26you can have a concluding line, this is optional, but it has to be, if you write a conclusion line,

07:33it has to be inspiring and echoing afterwards. You need to have this powerful line to end your report

07:43with. And you can end that paragraph, that conclusion, with expressions like, in conclusion,

07:49therefore, as expressed, overall, as a result, thus, finally, lastly, for this reason, in general,

07:56and so on. The format and the structure of the news report, the first is called reverse pyramid,

08:08reverse pyramid, or inverted pyramid. And that means, you start with the most important facts,

08:15the five Ws we just mentioned, who, what, where, when, and why. And then, in the body,

08:21you start to talk about more details. But you start with the most important facts. You always bear in

08:28mind that your audience, they don't have time to read the whole report. So, yeah, the headline should

08:36tell about the content, the sub headlines also should tell more about the content, and the leads

08:43should give us enough, the most important information, that if we don't go on reading

08:50beyond the lead, at least we should have gotten the whole picture. The second format is called the

08:57pyramid. The pyramid format, that's the chronologically structured report that you write it like you're

09:05writing a story. Okay, so you start from, or with the least important fact, then down to more important,

09:16and until you end with the most important fact. But the most commonly used pattern and format is the

09:24reverse pyramid format. Then the third format is called suspense. That's a mix of both, both inverted

09:34pyramid format and the pyramid format. Try in your headline and lead not to use the same words.

09:44For example, if a headline says NATO hunt Kosovo gunmen, for example, then the lead should go NATO

09:52peacekeepers are searching for, not hunt, not hunting, not hunting for, searching for. So, try to use

10:00different vocabulary in the lead, different from what you used in the headline. The last thing I would

10:07say is about the news translation difficulties, some difficulties. Always, I just, of course, there are

10:15several things to say, but I will just mention one thing today, and that's when you translate certain words,

10:24you need always to avoid these politically incorrect words, politically incorrect. For example, the,

10:33this Junko Talo in Chinese, how would you translate it into English? Is it Chinese mainland or the mainland

10:40of China or mainland China? Actually, you need first to see who your audience is. Is your audience in China

10:49or somewhere else? Because in China, then you have to translate it as mainland China, because Chinese

10:55mainland and the mainland of China, it may imply that there are two Chinas, and that may offend the people

11:02in China. So, if your audience is Chinese people in China, then you need to say mainland China.

11:12For example, another, another one, Kaigo Kaifeng. Kaigo Kaifeng, at the beginning, it was translated

11:19as transform or change, and after that, it was translated as open door. Then, now, nowadays, it's

11:26translated as a reform, but this open door always try to avoid this sensitivity, because open door may

11:33remind Chinese people of the open door policy imposed on China in the late 19th century by the West.

11:42There are always new expressions and words you come across to translate, especially in politics,

11:48like for example, Saint Yang, how would you translate Saint Yang? Emphasize the need to study, to have

11:55political awareness, and to be honest and upright. It's very long. It's very long, even though in

12:01Chinese, it's only two words. So, you can shorten it to say just emphasize three things, study politics

12:08and integrity. You come across all these new expressions in the news translation, and you always

12:14have to struggle finding the the best translation, like sang at Tai Piao. This is new expression

12:23coined by Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese president, but it's the official and formal translation of it now is

12:31the three represents, or Parang Patra, eight owners and eight shams, or eight do's and eight don'ts. You

12:39need to to find the the the most suitable translation for new expressions. Another expression,

12:48uh, wai shang sing ting ting ting. It means, at the beginning it was translated as export oriented economy,

12:59then outward looking economy. Nowadays, it's translated as global market economy. The final

13:06expression, and we end our class here, to build a well of society in an all-round way. That was translated.

13:17This is how it was translated at the beginning. That was the translation. Later on, it was translated

13:22as to build a moderately prosperous society in all aspects. With this, we end our second lesson. I hope

13:29you found it useful. And, uh, see you, uh, in lesson three.

13:45.

13:47.

13:48.

13:50.

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