.......................
CHAPTER TWOLITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Previous studies of news headlines
As mentioned above, headlines are the most prominent feature of news discourse (vanDijk, 1988b: 277). Therefore, it is not surprising that they have been studied quiteextensively not only by journalists but also by linguists. In this part, some previousstudies of news headlines will be expounded from two aspects: relevant studies ofnews headlines outside China and relevant studies of news headlines in China, with asummary presented afterwards.
2.1.1 Relevant studies of news headlines outside China
The literature on newspaper headlines outside China covers a wide range of topics,including both theoretical and empirical, all the way from the grammar of Englishheadlines to the distribution and effects of metaphorical expressions in English newsheadlines. Following is a review on some of those studies.
Mardh, in her book Headlinese: On the grammar of English front page headlines,(1980:183) provides an exhaustive study of the linguistic features of the headlines of awide range of English newspapers. Following are some typical linguistic features ofEnglish newspaper headlines identified in her research: the omission of articles; theomission of verbs and of auxiliaries; nominalizations; the frequent use of complexnoun phrases in subject position; adverbial headlines, with the omission of both verb and subject; the use of short words; the widespread use of puns, word play andalliteration; the importance of word order; and independent “wh” constructions notlinked to a main clause, which is a form not found in standard English.
......................
2.2 Previous studies of metaphor translation
Since metaphor represents thoughts and words in an implicit way, translation ofmetaphor is a little bit complicated. Indeed, whether metaphor can be translated usedto be the focus of debate several decades ago. Since then, scholars out of China andscholars in China have proposed their own understandings of metaphor translationand given some constructive suggestions.
2.2.1 Relevant studies of metaphor translation outside China
In his paper Can metaphor be translated? Dagut (1976) puts the question oftranslatability of metaphor in the spotlight of translation scholars. He points out thatmetaphor translation relies on translators’ bilingual competence and that they shouldsearch for equivalent expressions in the target language. According to Dagut, whether a translation of metaphor is successful or not depends to a great degree on the extentto which target readers share and resonate with the cultural experiences andsemantically related things of the original metaphor.
van den Broeck (1981) continues to explore the translatability of metaphor in hispaper titled The Limits of Translatability Exemplified by Metaphor Translation. Hedivides metaphors into creative ones and decorative ones according to their functions,and states that in the former kind there is “a deep necessary bond between the ‘tenor’and the ‘vehicle’” (1981:76) whereas the latter in most cases
