The Translation of Soft News

Key words：soft news translation

I. Soft News

Generally speaking，there are four criteria to classify news：

a. According to content，news can be classified into politics，economy，culture and education，sports，military affairs，law and society news，etc.

b. According to region，news can be classified into home，world，local，city and country news，etc.

c. According to style，news can be classified into straight news，interpretative reporting，depth reporting and investigative reporting，etc.

d. According to nature，news can be classified into hard and soft news.

II. The Characteristics and Status of Soft News

Regarding classification of news，western journalism usually adopts dichotomy method，divides news into hard news and soft news according to the nature of events and then subdivides them into various news styles. Hard news and soft news are two basic notions in western journalism，the distinction of which has always been a controversial topic. Since a scientific distinction of these two forms of news concerns the issues of types of news reporting and writing，and soft news translation is the focus of this thesis，it is apparently significant to make a distinction between them.

Hard news is significant news while soft news is unusual，peculiar and entertaining news. Hard news usually adopts inverted pyramid or screw style，while soft news’ structure is free from any restrictions. The highlight of soft news does not need to appear in the lead，which mostly begins in an indirect and delayed way in soft news.

III. The Importance of Soft News Translation

In the relatively stable world situation，the trend of the society’s pluralism appears and keeps rising. At the same time，the world presents the trend of globalization and information and China’s reporting for abroad gets deeper and deeper.

On the one hand，China is a big socialist country and in the new times of reform and opening up and trying to achieve the four modernizations. All these situations require China to know the world and at the same time be known by the world. Only on the basis of knowing each other that friendships and various relations can be established，that peaceful and favorable international circumstances can be created，which are necessary for China’s development.

Basically speaking，the main tasks of reporting for abroad are：first，clarify China’s stand and domestic and foreign policies and also the advantages of socialist system with Chinese characteristics with the aim to gain understanding，sympathy and support from the world. Second.Third，offer all kinds of knowledge，information about China to meet various needs. Fourth，promote the relations of economy and trade and corporations of culture and science and technologybetween China and other Countries. Fifth，communicate Chinese thoughts and feelings with those of people in other countries. Actually，all the above tasks can be summarized as one point，that is，promote understanding of other peoples about China and Chinese. That is also the task of English translation of soft news.

IV. The Difficulties of Soft News Translation

The task to promote understanding between the peoples is not only pretty significant but also rather difficult. Generally speaking，there are several factors as follows：

Cultural difference

It includes the difference of cultural quality and values in various fields of politics，society，ethic，psychology，life and so on. There must be big cultural differences between China and other western countries so we must fully consider the obstruction on mutual understanding between the peoples caused by cultural differences.

Language barrier

As we all know，it is difficult to perfectly transmit the meaning and feeling of the original when translating from one language to another. Sometimes，there are even mistakes.

Today these incorrect concepts，prejudices and biases still exist. Due to the long time of cutting off from the outside world，our country is short of understandings of the outside situations and cultures. And this leads to blindness and low efficiency in our work to promote understanding the outside world and sometimes reaction even appears.

V. Conclusion

Basically speaking，the theme of soft news is one that fewer scholars touch. However，soft news shoulders the heavy responsibility of promoting the communication between China and the outside. Thanks to its characteristics，soft news has become the window through which the world would know China. Therefore，it is quite meaningful to study its English translation.

【References】

[1]Catford，J. C. A Linguistic Theory of Translation. London：Oxford University Press，1965.

[2]Newmark，Peter. Approaches to Translation. Shanghai：Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press，2001.