English Translation of Soft News: Functionalist Approaches

Today the world has a tendency of globalization and along with this, Chinese activity of reporting for abroad goes deeper and deeper. Soft news has become the window through which the world can know Chinese society and culture. Thus, soft news translation is brought into prominence. And this study aims to explore the best method of soft news translation with the guidance of functionalist approaches and then to provide the better translation for foreign audiences and at the same time to do reporting for abroad well. Functionalist approaches offer much guidance to soft news translation, especially its theories of the intentionality of translator, the acceptability of target text and culture-specificity lay the theoretical basis for the translation method of soft news-adaptation. The study proves applicability of functionalist approaches to soft news translation and explores three modes of adaptation (expansion, omission and creation) with examples. The study should be especially useful to professionals in translation and news field, or anyone who is interested in the cross-cultural communication between China and the western world.