Abstract

With the development of society, new objects and new concepts spring up all the time. The existing words can’t meet the needs of expression anymore. Therefore, there comes neologism. Due to the dominating position and the great influence of English language, English media becomes a major source for the creation of new words. Thus, the study of English media neologism translation becomes more and more significant. 

This thesis gives insight into the illustration and translation of English media neologism from the angle of Schema Theory, through which the essence of compression is to decode the original text, which requiring the translator to possess abundant language schemata, context schemata, text schemata and culture schemata and be able to activate relative schema in the brain. The key to expression is to re-code the target language appropriately, making it easy for activating the reader’s existent schema. The purpose of this thesis is to dig out an effective way to translate English media neologism based on the linguistic features of English media neologism as well as Schema Theory. 

This thesis is composed of four chapters. Chapter 1 introduces research purpose and significance. Meanwhile, it confines the definition of research target—neologism. Chapter 2 is a general literature review of the previous research on neologism translation as well as on schema theory. Then, it explains the relationship between Schemata Theory and the translation of English media neologisms in detail. Chapter 3 introduces the Schema Theory briefly, covering definition, properties and different classifications. Chapter 4 is the most important part of the thesis., the author explores the application of three types of Schema in neologism translation. The last chapter is the conclusion part which contains major findings, limitations and future research suggestions.

Keyword: neologism; translation; Scheme Theory; media

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Significance of the Study-1

1.2 Definition of Neologism-1

1.3 Purpose of the Study-2

2. Literature Review-4

2.1 On English Media Neologism-4

2.1.1 Previous Studies on English Neologism Abroad-4

2.1.1 Previous Studies on English Neologism in China-5

2.2 On Schema Theory-6

2.2.1 A Brief History of Schema-6

2.2.2 Previous Studies on Schema Theory in Translation Research-7

3. Schema Theory-8

3.1 Definition of Schema-8

3.2 Content of Schema Theory -8

3.3 Properties of Schema-9

3.4 Classification of Schema-9

4. The Application of Schema Theory to the translation of English Neologism-11

4.1 Application of Schema Theory in the Process of Decoding-11

4.1.1 The Activation to the Existing Schema-11

4.1.2 The Enrichment to the Translators’ Schema-12

4.2 Application of Schema Theory in the Process of Re-encoding-12

4.2.1 Re-encoding of Linguistic Schema-13

4.2.2 Re-encoding of Context Schema-14

4.2.3 Re-encoding of Culture Schema-16

5. Conclusion-18

References-19