Common Methods of Newspaper Headlines Translation

1. Inversion. This transformation is demanded by a fixed word order in the English sentence. It is often conditioned on the degree of compatibility freedom in both languages : “Most favoured nation trading status” – “Статус наибольшего благоприятствования в торговле”. («The Economist»). Polynomial word combinations which are frequently used for creating news headlines in the British and American periodicals often include attributes which represent a full sentence: “The no-room-at-the-inn incident” – “Инцидент, связанный с отсутствием мест в гостинице” («The Sun»). The principle of the translation of such news headlines includes the following steps : 1. To figure out the bearing word; 2. To select semantic groups; 3. To make a translation starting with the bearing word.
2. The replacement of parts of speech or parts of a sentence. In some cases the replacement of certain parts of speech or members of sentence is required in order to achieve adequate translation: “Bill Clinton faces bypass operation ” – “Биллу Клинтону предстоит перенести шунтирование” (“International Herald Tribune”). It is the syntactical and semantic transformation that the sentence undergoes in the above case – the definite clause is replaced by the indefinite one due to the peculiarities of the Russian language. Thus, the simple predicate faces in the English headline is substituted for the complex verbal predicate предстоит перенести in the Russian variant.
3. Word addition is required in order to clear up the meaning of a headline and deliver adequate translation: “For Bush it’s the man (not a detailed plan) that matters” – “Для Буша важен не столько детальный план, сколько человек, способный выполнить его” («International Herald Tribune»). The laconism of the English language allows to omit the subordinate clause we add to the Russian variant without any significant changes in the meaning. As one can observe, apart from the method of word addition the method of inversion is also used in this case. Another example is: «Feel the hate, fear and loathing in New York» -- «Почувчтвуйте ненависть, страх и отвращение, царяшие в Нью-Йорке». («International Herald Tribune»); “U.S. reservist convicted over abuse in Iraqi prison” – “Американский резервист осужден за жестокое обращение с заключенными в иракской тюрьме”. («International Herald Tribune»).
4. Literal translation can take place in case of the similarity of the syntactical structure and word order in the English and the Russian sentence. In this case the English news headline may be rendered into Russian without any significant changes. Here it is possible to omit an article or any other functional word or to change the semantic character of a word. Literal translation should not be mixed with a word-for-word translation which always leads to a mistake. Exampler of the use of literal translation method: «Lebanon extends term of its president» -- «Ливан продлевает срок правления президента». («International Herald Tribune »).