A Study on the Translation Mechanism of Culture-Specific Lexical Items in Chinese–Korean News Reporting: An Analytical Framework Integrating Semantic Gaps and Skopos Theory

This study aims to systematically investigate the underlying logic governing the selection of Chinese-Korean translation strategies for culture-specific lexical items in international publicity news by integrating Semantic Gap Theory and Skopos Theory and constructing a two-dimensional translation decision-making model based on "semantic gap-discourse function."To this end, a small-scale parallel corpus was compiled from 58 Chinese-Korean parallel news articles published in the Korean-language edition of Xinhua News between 2023 and 2025, from which 172 valid bilingual pairs of culture-specific lexical items were extracted.A mixed-methods approach combining quantitative statistical analysis with qualitative case analysis was employed.The findings indicate that translators select different translation strategies based on two major dimensions: the degree of semantic gap associated with culture-specific lexical items and their informational weight within the discourse.Specifically, translators preferentially used foreignizing literal translation for core policy terms with a high degree of cultural sharedness.For key concepts involving partial or complete semantic gaps, translators predominantly used compensatory foreignization strategies, such as transliteration with annotation and literal translation with annotation.In contrast, culturally specific rhetorical expressions serving background or modifying functions tended to be rendered through domesticated paraphrase or image substitution strategies.This study contributes to Chinese-Korean news translation by addressing the limitations of previous research, particularly the lack of a standardized analytical framework for translation decision-making, and by proposing an integrated analytical model that combines semantic gaps with discourse functions.In addition, the proposed model provides systematic analytical guidelines applicable to international publicity news translation practice and Korean translation education, thereby contributing to more accurate and effective communication of discourse with Chinese characteristics to Korean-speaking audiences.