1.5《新国际主义》

(1)E: ...the religious Right are now pushing to expand these safe haven laws as an alternative to abortion.

C: ...宗教右翼开始推行“安全港法案”，将其作为堕胎法的替代法案。

At the lexical level, news translation should fully consider the combination of professional terminology and context. In this example, “safe haven” is translated as “安全港” in the legal context. Therefore, “safe haven law” is translated as the “安全港法案”, which is a fixed translation of legal terms and conforms to the vocabulary norms of Chinese legal texts. If translated literally as “安全避难所法”, it deviates from the professional context. Here, we follow the vocabulary matching habits of legal texts to ensure the accuracy of terminology. This aligns with Verschueren’s emphasis on structural objects of adaptability, where lexical choices must conform to domain-specific norms.

(2)E: Many of the regulations on legal abortion.... Instead, they are a 'reflection of stigma or how we treat abortion exceptionally in law'...

C: 今天许多堕胎法规...。这些法规“反映了污名化堕胎，以及法律对堕胎的例外对待”。

From a grammatical perspective, translators need to handle the conversion of grammatical rules between Chinese and English. In this example, the English original “they are a ‘reflection of stigma’” uses the passive structure “are+noun phrase”, implying that “the regulations are seen as a reflection”. The Chinese translation converts this into the active voice—“反映了社会污名”—which conforms to Chinese grammatical conventions of using active voice more frequently than passive voice. However, in the latter half of the sentence, “how we treat abortion exceptionally in law”, while “treat” is in the active form, it implies a passive meaning—“abortion is exceptionally treated”. This passive logic is indirectly conveyed through the “对”, aligning with the grammatical feature of Chinese “implicit passivity”, in which the passive relationships are expressed through prepositional structures rather than explicit passive forms.

(3)E: In 2022, the WHO issued new guidelines calling for ‘medically unnecessary policy barriers’ like..., warning such barriers put women and girls at greater risk of unsafe abortion, stigmatization and health complications.

C: 2022年，世界卫生组织发布了新的指导方针，呼吁废除“非医学必要政策障碍”，如...。世卫组织警告，这些障碍让女性面临更大风险，包括危险堕胎、羞辱和健康并发症。

At the syntactic level, both the source text and the target text retain the syntactic habits of their respective languages. The original English sentence combines two actions (“issuing guidelines” and “warning of consequences”) into one long sentence through the present participle phrases “calling for...” and “warning...”, adhering to the syntactic feature of English, that is hypotaxis (relying on participles, conjunctions, etc., for cohesion). The Chinese translation splits this into two independent short sentences, separated by a period, and supplements the subject “the WHO” to avoid ambiguity from the omitted subject in English, conforming to the syntactic habit of Chinese which is parataxis (relying on logical order and short sentence combinations for cohesion). Meanwhile, the adverbial clause “warning...” in English implies a causal relationship; the translation makes this relationship explicit by presenting “警告...” as a separate sentence and using “这些障碍” to review the preceding context, aligning with the Chinese syntactic logic of “stating facts first, then providing supplementary explanations”.

(4)E: On a narrow street deep in Barcelona’s Raval district is a building with an inconspicuous oval hole in its facade. Above the wooden door is the faint lettering ‘Casa d’Infants Orfes’ (House of Orphaned Infants).

C: 在巴塞罗那拉瓦尔区一条狭窄的街道上有一栋建筑，正面有一个不起眼的椭圆形孔洞。木门上方依稀可见Casa d'Infants Orfes（孤儿之家）的字样。

In the source text, “Barcelona’s Raval district” is translated as “巴塞罗那拉瓦尔区” using transliteration plus free translation to retain the proper noun for the geographical name, ensuring that target readers can recognize the habitual expression of the location and accurately understand its spatial position. Additionally, spatial descriptions such as “inconspicuous oval hole”, “wooden door”, and “wooden hatch” are literally translated to build a specific physical scene, making the appearance and function of the historical baby abandonment facility visible. In English news translation, the translated text reconstructs the physical scenes of the source one by precisely translating place names and architectural details, enabling readers to form a clear spatial image through language. This aligns with the core of physical world adaptation—using linguistic choices such as place names, time adverbials, and scene descriptions to meet readers’ cognitive frameworks of a specific scene or the objective environment.

(5)E: Take Japan, where doctors ask for proof of spousal consent, or Britain, which requires authorization from two doctors.

C: 以日本和英国为例，日本的医生要求配偶同意的证明，英国需要两名医生的授权。

Japan has a traditional gender power structure. The “spouse consent proof” indicates that the spouse’s participation in the decision-making process regarding childbirth is one of the manifestations of this structure. The “authorization from two doctors” in the UK reflects the strict regulation of abortion in the country’s healthcare system. Both show the institutional norms of their respective societies. The translation retains expressions such as “spousal consent” and “doctor authorization”, aligning with the understanding of different social systems among readers in China, Japan, and the UK—for example, Japan’s family-centered values and Britain’s medical bureaucratic system—to avoid cultural misinterpretation. By literally translating social norm terms, the translation conveys the original critique that “abortion policies are constrained by social institutions”, which accords with target readers’ cognitive frameworks of social realities in various countries.

(6)E: Despite..., the young woman says she still feels like a sinner, and kept it a secret from her family.

C: 尽管...，她仍自觉罪孽深重，至今对家人隐瞒此事。

“Feels like a sinner” is translated into “自觉罪孽深重”, which aligns with the negative perceptions of abortion influenced by Ethiopia’s religious culture, particularly Orthodox Christianity and Evangelicalism, conveying the inner conflict of the protagonist. “Kept it a secret from her family” reflects the social stigma around abortion in the local context, which belongs to the collective perception in the mental world. Through words like “罪孽深重” and “隐瞒”, the translation evokes the reader’s empathy for the protagonist’s psychological pressure. By retaining the original description of individual psychology, the translation makes target readers fully understand the “reproductive attitudes shaped by religious culture,” enhancing the emotional resonance of the news report.