ANALYSIS OF TRANSLATION STRATEGIES FOR RUSSIAN NEWS INTO CHINESE IN THE CONTEXT OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

Abstract

The paper examines the primary causes of semantic distortion that arise when Russian news texts are translated into Chinese, tracing these distortions to cross‑cultural divergences between Russia and China. The study focuses on Russian news materials and their Chinese translations, with particular attention to domestication and foreignization as translation strategies under conditions of cultural asymmetry. Using comparative and contextual analysis, the authors demonstrate that differences in the symbolic meanings of animal imagery as well as religious contrasts lead to shifts in emotional and evaluative content and create cognitive barriers for Chinese audiences. Key evidence is drawn from translations published by authoritative news outlets. The findings indicate that foreignization helps preserve culturally marked elements, while domestication enhances communicative effectiveness by adapting the text to Chinese linguistic norms. The study argues that domestication and foreignization are not mutually exclusive but rather form a complementary system, where the choice of strategy is guided by the genre‑specific and communicative function of the news piece, audience expectations, and the broader cultural context. The article synthesizes new empirical material on the topic and concludes that in translating Russian news into Chinese, foreignization is the more frequently adopted approach, often supplemented by traditional techniques such as addition, omission, and annotation. The work is interdisciplinary, bridging linguoculturology, translation studies, and media linguistics. This perspective will be of value to specialists in cross‑cultural communication, news translation, and Chinese studies. The issue of quantitatively assessing the communicative effects of different translation strategies remains underexplored and calls for further empirical research.