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Distinctive features of news headlines. Peculiarities of their translation according to these features.
IntroductionDistinctive features of news headlines
Formation of english neologisms
Use of Translation Methods When Translating News Headlines
Common Methods of Newspaper Headlines Translation
Peculiar Methods of Newspaper Headlines Translation
Two reasons causing difficulties when attempting to understand correctly the meaning of news headlines are:
- Frequent violation of linguistic standards in them (shortened structure of the sentence, omission of articles, link-verbs and even notional verbs, other peculiarities of syntax, punctuation and word order);
- Not full and deep enough knowledge of the culture and realities of the country where the language studied is the native one; also superficial understanding of phraseological expressions.
As a rule, it’s reasonable to translate the headline after having read the whole article. It makes the meaning of the headline clear. Thus, when analyzing a series of articles in the USA TODAY devoted to the shuttle Columbia catastrophe it becomes clear that the translation of their headlines will originate not only from the contents of each article but basically from the whole context. Let us take 2 articles as an example : “ Hard questions on horizon for space agency ” and “Criticism about aging spacecraft and safety gets new attention”. Here are extracts quoted from the both articles:
“Hard questions on horizon for space agency”
The second shuttle disaster is likely to bring changes to the U.S. space program that will be more profound than the focus on safety that followed the Challenger explosion in 1986, analysts and members of Congress say…
…The demise of Columbia also has reinvigorated debate over whether the risks of manned flight are worth the costs, human and dollar, and whether adequate scientific work can be done with unmanned spaceships…
…But even the most optimistic estimates put a new-model spaceship at least 10 years away. And besides budget hurdles, those with lucrative stakes in the status quo, including contractors and those representing congressional districts with space operations, are not eager to mothball the shuttle…
“Criticism about aging spacecraft and safety gets new attention”
Now, although the cause of Columbia’s crush isn’t clear, the years of warnings about using 30-year-old technology to blast people into orbit are getting a fresh look…
…NASA’s strongest supporters in Congress have campaigned for increases to its budget. Congress responded by increasing NASA funds by about $600 million in each of the past two budget years.
The White House is asking for nearly $15.5 billion for the agency’s budget in 2004, a rise of about $469 million over the current year. But most of the increase is aimed at new technology and robotics for unmanned space exploration, no shuttle maintenance.
Isolated translation of the 2d headline makes no sense as the contents of the 2d article make up the logical continuation of the 1st one: after the author has illustrated the present-day situation and the possible future of NASA in the light of the tragic events, he passes on to the description of the following necessary measure in the 2d article – increasing financing of NASA for the sake of creating new safer shuttles . The necessity of this measure originates from the arguments given in the 1st article. From this comes the following translation: “Космическое агентство столкнется с трудноразрешимыми вопросами” and “Критика безопасности «подержанных» шатлов вспыхнула с новой силой”.