A Study of Translation of Rhetorical Devices in The New York Times as Found in United Daily News Bilingual Weekly

• Main Authors: Chia-en Hsieh, 謝佳恩
• Other Authors: Tso-wei Hsieh
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/95074328809034282585

碩士 === 國立高雄第一科技大學 === 應用英語系口筆譯碩士班 === 102 === Abstract The purpose of this study is to explore how rhetorical devices (RD) are presented in the translation of English-Chinese bilingual news. This study uses 147 pieces of The New York Times (NYT) articles in the year 2010 from the bilingual section of the United Daily News (UDN) online version as the focus of research mainly for the following reasons. First, as a leading American newspaper, the NYT has 160 year of long-standing history of reliability and authority. It has also been recognized as a crucial center for global media’s attention because it provides an authoritative news platform for all kinds of media. As far as the journalistic writing skills are concerned, the researcher finds the NYT journalists tend to apply sophisticated, rich rhetorical devices to make their articles vivid, colorful and intriguing. The rhetorical devices found in the NYT are worth studying because good use of them can vivify stories, provide articles with images, clarify abstract concepts, and simplify difficult language, thus making them more interesting and comprehendible. Under the journalistic writing principle, they can help journalists faithfully convey the news while dramatizing articles and bringing readers closer to the subject of the news or even influence readers’ opinions. All these can effectively help increase the overall readership of newspaper. Second, starting from the year 2001, Taiwan has been promoting a new way of learning English based on the British and American model newspapers. With the UDN’s strong promotion, the NYT has turned into the most frequently quoted news source among Taiwanese media. At the same time, it also becomes an important English learning material used by the majority of English learners and the professionals who want to expand their knowledge, explore current events in depth, and understand the world trends. Therefore, the translation quality of the bilingual section of the UDN has become increasingly important for the target readers, not only for gaining the authoritative, profound information but also for the rich corpus. The bilingual section’s journalistic jargons, trendy terms, culture-specific terms and rhetorical devices, which are all key sources to improve English ability and understand American culture and society. In this study, aside from the introduction of definition of the rhetorical devices, the researcher applies two kinds of theories—the German linguist Hans Vermeer’s Skopos theory and American translation theorist’s Lawrence Venuti’s domestication and foreignization—to analyze and compare the quality of original and revised translations. As for the Skopos, this study adopts three criteria to examine the translation quality to see if it reaches the following functions. The first function is whether the translation faithfully presents the original meaning and reaches the basic principle of journalistic translation. The second is to study whether the translation renders the correct meaning from the original source text and makes an easy access for bilingual learners. Lastly, one must judge whether the translation equivalently presents the original rhetorical effect in the TT. Following the above three guidelines, the essence of the article can be absorbed by the target readers. In terms of the translation approaches of domestication and foreignization, in order to achieve the effect of domestication, this study uses the methods of adaptation, such as expansion, cultural adequacy, and so on, to show the cultural background in the ST, to help target readers to cross the cultural barrier, and to retain the original meaning or the cultural implication of RD in the TT. With regard to the approach of foreignization, the discussion is focused on formalistic rhetorical devices found in ST, such as antithesis, parallelism, repetition, and so on. The researcher also employs the methods of adaptation to preserve the original format of RD in the ST so that the TT can faithfully present the aesthetics of rhetorical form.