The challenges of New Media Translation: a multimodal approach to website translation

Abstract

This paper deals with the challenges of new media translation from a multimodal perspective. Through reviewing the relevant literature, this paper identifies three major features that new media have had upon translation: partial translation, multiple semiotic representation and consistency. Based on a case study of website translation, this paper aims at exploring the connections among these three features by examining the cross-cultural and cross-modal representation of web pages. That is, this paper at tempts to show how the translator uses modal resources to form segments, produce partial translation and maintain consistency between texts. It is found that new media translation produces its own systems of multimodal representation and method of textual interpretation; furthermore, the multimodal system of new media translation is based on reflecting of social reality and inter-cultural sensitivity.