Cult Load Words EN 12

12 殷慧珍 A study on the English Translation of Culture-loaded Words in The Spring Festival written by Fang Huawen Based on Domestication and Foreignization Strategies

殷慧珍 Yin Huizhen, Hunan Normal University, China

Cult_Load_Words_EN_12

Abstract

Culture-loaded words refer to words with unique cultural connotations, which are powerful tools to promote cultural communication. Due to the great differences between eastern and western cultural backgrounds, the translation of culture-loaded words is a difficult task. Therefore, this essay studies the English translation of Chinese culture-loaded words in The Spring Festival, which is a prose written by Chinese Writer and translator Fang Huawen, introducing many Chinese customs and activities containing Chinese culture-loaded words. According to the Nida’s classification of culture, this essay classifies culture-loaded words into ecological culture-loaded words, material culture-loaded words, social culture-loaded words, religious culture-loaded words and language culture-loaded words. Based on the domestication and foreignization translation strategies proposed by Venuti, this essay analyzes the translation strategies of culture-loaded words in Fang Huawen’s prose The Spring Festival and its translation, and summarizes the translation of culture-loaded words based on domestication and foreignization strategies.

Culture-loaded words refer to words with unique cultural connotations, which are powerful tools to promote cultural communication. Due to the great differences between eastern and western cultural backgrounds, the translation of culture-loaded words is a difficult task. Therefore, this essay studies the English translation of Chinese culture-loaded words in The Spring Festival, which is a prose written by Chinese Writer and translator Fang Huawen, introducing many Chinese customs and activities containing Chinese culture-loaded words. According to the Nida’s classification of culture, this essay will classify culture-loaded words into ecological culture-loaded words, material culture-loaded words, social culture-loaded words, religious culture-loaded words and language culture-loaded words. Based on the domestication and foreignization translation strategies proposed by Venuti, this essay will analyze the translation strategies of culture-loaded words in Fang Huawen’s prose The Spring Festival and its translation, and I will summarize the translation of culture-loaded words based on domestication and foreignization strategies.--Cheng Yang (talk) 15:26, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Key Words

Culture-loaded Words, The Spring Festival, Domestication and Foreignization Strategies, Fang Huawen

题目

归化异化策略下方华文《春节》中文化负载词的英译研究

摘要

文化负载词是指具有独特文化内涵的词语，是促进文化交流的强有力工具。由于东西方文化背景的巨大差异，文化负载词的翻译是一项艰巨的任务。因此，本文以方华文散文《春节》中的中国文化负载词的英译为研究对象，介绍了许多词汇关于中国习俗活动里蕴含的中国文化负载词。根据奈达的文化分类，本文将文化负载词分为生态文化负载词、物质文化负载词、社会文化负载词、宗教文化负载词和语言文化负载词。本文以韦努蒂提出的归化和异化翻译策略为基础，分析方华文的散文《春节》中文化负载词的翻译策略，总结出基于归化和异化策略的文化负载词翻译方法。

关键词

文化负载词《春节》 归化与异化翻译策略 方华文

Introduction

Since the development of China’s reform and opening up, China's economy has improved rapidly. Culture, as a manifestation of the soft power of national development, playing an increasing role in the country. And Chinese culture is becoming more and more popular among foreign readers. As a carrier of culture, book is a powerful tool for cultural communication. Meanwhile, translation is a bridge connected different languages and different cultures and the main task of translation is to translate the content of the source language into the target language. Therefore, in China, more and more books, such as poetry collections, novels, essays and so on, are translated into foreign languages and then widely spread all over the world. However, due to the huge differences in economic system, language structure and cultural customs between China and the West, many culture-loaded words with unique characteristics of the Chinese nation, such as some idioms, sayings and idiomatic expressions, are difficult to translate. Those who do not understand the Chinese cultural background cannot fully understand the meaning of these culture-loaded words. Therefore, the translation of culture-loaded words is key to the whole translation which is well worthy of doing research. The Spring Festival is a prose written by Fang Huawen, a famous Chinese literary translator. It talks about the Spring Festival, the most important traditional Chinese festival, and gives a detailed description of the activities during this traditional festival. Many culture-loaded words appeared in the prose represent Chinese culture, people can understand the profound Chinese culture through the authentic translation. Based on the translation strategies of domestication and foreignization, this essay explores the translation strategies of culture-loaded words in Fang Huawen’s The Spring Festival.

Since the development of China’s reform and opening up, China's economy has improved rapidly. Culture, as a manifestation of the soft power of national development, playing an increasing role in the country. And Chinese culture is becoming more and more popular among foreign readers. As a carrier entity of culture, book is a powerful tool for cultural communication. Meanwhile, translation is a bridge connected different languages and different cultures, and the main task of translation is to translate the source language into the target language. Therefore, in China, more and more books, such as poetry collections, novels, essays and so on, are translated into foreign languages and then widely spread all over the world. However, due to the huge differences in economic system, language structure and cultural customs between China and the West, many culture-loaded words with unique characteristics of Chinese nation, such as idioms, sayings and idiomatic expressions, are difficult to translate it accurately. Those who do not understand the Chinese cultural background cannot fully understand the meaning of these culture-loaded words. Therefore, the translation of culture-loaded words is key to the whole translation which is well worthy of doing researches. The Spring Festival is a prose written by Fang Huawen, a famous Chinese literary translator. It talks about the Spring Festival, the most important traditional Chinese festival, and gives a detailed description of activities during this traditional festival. Many culture-loaded words appeared in the prose represent Chinese culture, people can understand more about our profound Chinese culture through the authentic translation. Based on the translation strategies of domestication and foreignization, this essay explores the translation strategies of culture-loaded words in Fang Huawen’s The Spring Festival.--Cheng Yang (talk) 15:35, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Fang Huawen and The Spring Festival

Fang Huawen was born in 1955, who is a famous Chinese literary translator and translation theorist. He plays an important role in literary translation in China and he was elected as a representative in the field of literary translation in China. He has translated many literary works such as Oliver Twist and David Copperfield written by Charles Dickens, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure written by Thomas Hardy, Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice written by Jane Austen and so on. Also, he wrote books of Chinese Culture of Editions Series such as Chinese Garden, Chinese Folk Customs, Famous Historical Cities in China and so on, which introduce Chinese culture in all areas. His representative translated work is History of Chinese Translation in the 20th Century, which elaborately introduces the Chinsese Translation theories and translators, covering more than ten million words. His translated works have made great contributions to the spread of Chinese culture, and his translation views are well known both at home and abroad. He was named "the most productive literary translator in contemporary China” by the UNESCO International Federation of Translators and his translation theories were publish in Babel, the academic journal of the International Federation of Translators, which enabled the world to know the general situation of Translation in China and the characteristics of translation.

In this essay, The Spring Festival is selected as the text of analysis, which is one of the prose collected in the book Translation and Appreciation of Chinese and Foreign Selected Famous Proses and Poems, whose author is also Fang Huawen, selecting and translating famous Chinese and foreign proses and poetry. The Spring Festival is written by Fang Huawen and he selcets his own translation version in the book. The prose introduces the Spring Festival, the most important traditional festival of the China. The prose introduces the customs and activities of the Spring Festival in detail, which have been passed down from the ancient time. With the changes of the time, the words and customs have their own distinctiveness. Taking the traditional activity “post picture” as an example in the essay, Chinese people posted pictures of Shen Shu and Yu Lu with the wish of getting good luck and happiness in Nan Dynasty. While in Tang Dynasty, they posted the photos of Qin Shubao and Yuchi Jingde. If you don't know the cultural background of Chinese culture, you can hardly know the connotaion of the words. For example, the names of firecrackers are of various kinds, like "Rockets", "Rolling Mines", "Fairy Scattering Flowers", "Knights in Red" and so on. The author elaborately introduces all kinds of customs and activities from the first day of the first lunar month to the 15th day of the first lunar month, among which culture-loaded words are unique to Chinese culture, and the translation of these culture-loaded words will greatly promote the spread of Chinese culture.

Culture and Culture-loaded Words

The Brief Introduction of Culture

Compared with the economic and political field, culture refers to the spiritual activities of human beings and the products they produce. Culture is a set of customs, traditions and values formed by people living in a specific community over a long period of time, such as the culture of a nation or country. There are various cultures in the world, and each culture has its own characteristics, including its own ethnic values, such as religious belief, world outlook, etc. It also includes spiritual products produced by specific ethnic groups, such as some artistic and scientific spiritual products. Besides, the manners and behaviors of a nation such as folk customs, spirits and so on.

Chinese contemporary writer and scholar Yu Qiuyu gave a detailed interpretation of culture. He gave a definition of culture with a concise and simple sentence in What is Culture, that is, culture is a kind of spiritual value and life style called habit, and its final result is collective personality. (Yu qiuyu 2012:3) The first key word is spiritual value, which means that culture is not only a cultural phenomenon, but also has cultural value. Therefore, it can be explained that culture is a spiritual symbol of human beings compared with the primitive state. The second key word is lifestyle. This is the concrete realization of spiritual value. In most cases, culture, it should be concrete and acessible. The third key word is collective personality. This shows that culture not only affects people, but also concentrates on personality precipitation to maintain some stability. That is to say, the unique spiritual value and way of life developed by a particular nation is the culture of this nation, such as Confucianism, ancestral hall culture in Chinese culture and so on.

Specifically, Culture covers nearly all kinds of fields in social life. There are many classifications of culture from different perspectives. For example, from the geographical aspect, there are local culture and foreign culture, urban culture and rural culture, Eastern culture and Western culture and so on. Also, from the perspective of time, there are primitive culture, slavery culture, feudal culture, capitalist culture, socialist culture and so on. According to Nida, he divided culture into five categories in his book Language, Cultural and Translation:(1) ecological culture, (2) material culture, (3) social culture, (4) religious culture, (5) language culture. (Nida 1993: 91)

The Brief Introduction of Culture-loaded Words

Culture-loaded words refer to the words or phrases carrying the unique cultural connotations of a certain nation, which are different from other nations. Chinese scholar Hu Wenzhong defined culture-loaded words as follows: "Culture-loaded words are words within the scope of a specific culture, and are the direct and indirect reflection of national culture in the language vocabulary" (Hu Wenzhong 1999:64). When these culture-loaded words are translated into the target language, it is not easy to find corresponding words in the target language. Therefore, the wide use of culture-loaded words can transmit national cultural values and promote national communication.

Based on the classification of culture of Nida, culture-loaded words also can be divided into five catergories accordingly. The first is ecological culture-loaded words, which refer to the words that reflect the unique local ecology, such as climate, lgeomorphology, natural environment, mountains, rivers, vegetation and so on. Different geographical environments breed different cultures, such as the Chinese idiom “稳如泰山”, which translates into English as stable as Mount Tai, meaning as firm as a rock, "Mount Tai" is a unique ecological environment in China. Mount Tai is very majestic in the hearts of the Chinese people, and it is worshipped by the people and enjoys a high status. Therefore, people use this idiom to praise people as stable and unshakable as Mount Tai. For English phrase, "a big fish" is literally translated into Chinese “一条大鱼”, but in English culture, it means "Great man", because Britain is an island country surrounded by the sea, which reflects the influence of the sea on British culture.

The second is material culture-loaded words, which refer to words produced in daily life to meet the development of people's material life, that is, words with cultural connotations such as clothing, food and household goods that people need in daily life. In different cultures, people have different associations with different objects. For example, in Chinese culture, since the ancient time, people have divided the universe into five kinds of things, namely are Wood (木), Fire (火), Earth (土), Metal (金), and Water (水), and called them "Wu Xing(五行)"also known as the Five Elements or Five Phases. The system of five phases was used for describing interactions and relationships between phenomena.

The third social culture-loaded words refer to words that reflect various aspects of the society according to different social backgrounds, such as unique festivals, customs, local conditions and practices, as well as the way of address and greeting. For example, "aunt" in English refers to different people in Chinese, that is, maternal aunt, paternal aunt, wife of mother's brother, wife of father's brother.

The fourth religious culture-loaded words refer to some words related to religious beliefs and concepts, reflecting the influence of religion o.n people's lives. For example, Chinese culture is deeply influenced by Buddhism. Some common sayings contain the influence of Buddhism on people's life, such as the Chinese proverb "菩萨心肠"，which refers to the people with a great kind heart. Cram at the eleventh hour. "菩萨"is Bodhisattvas, who embrace qualities like self-sacrifice and morality. The Image of bodhisattva in Buddhism is different from that of Jesus in Christianity.

The last one language culture-loaded words are the reflection of different languages characteristics in speech, lexical, syntax and other linguistic aspects, usually found in dialogue, ancient poetry and colloquialisms, idioms, and so on. Chinese sentences attach importance to the connection of meaning, and clauses are often connected by meaning, while English sentences are connected by connectives. For example, the famous Chinese proverb,"经得广，知得多"，the whole sentence is very concise, only with six words, and there is no conjunction to connect the sentence. However, the English translation cannot completely translate the format, but need to use a conjunction to connect the sentences in English grammar, that is if you experience more, you can know more things.

Domestication and Foreignization Strategies

Domestication and foreignization are two different translation strategies proposed by Venuti in The Translator's Invisibility A History of Translation from the perspective of culture in 1995. According to Venuti, Domestication refers to the translation strategy in which a transparent, fluent style is adopted in order to minimize the strangeness of the foreign text for target language readers.(Shulttleworth , Cowie 1997 : 43~ 44) This was based on the Germanphilosopher Schleiermacher's famous notion of the translation that don’t disturb the reader, as much as possible, and then lead the author towards the meaning that author want to convey. That is to say, using the tanslation strategie of domestication is to localize the translated text. And translator should first consider the target language readers but not the loyalty to the author. Therefore, when translating, the translator should choose the plain and familiar words and expressions in the target language that would not be a barrier to reading for readers, so that the translation can be read nativly and vividly but do not make the readers feel stiff or unfamiliar, and it would not be like a text has been translated but an original book. When translating, he also created many plots that cater to the public’s preferences, making the novel interesting and easy to understand. Because of the cultural differences between the East and the west, some specific words in the source language have no corresponding meanings in the target language. Therefore, especially when translating idioms and allusions, domestication is often used in order to maintain their unique simplicity and expressiveness. For example, cry up wine and sell vinegar(挂羊头卖狗肉)/ live a dog's life(过牛马一样的生活)/seek a hare in hen's nest（缘木求鱼）（Fang Mengzhi 2004: 3）

Foreignization refers to the translation strategy that a target text is produced which deliberately breaks target conventions by retaining something of the foreignness of the original. (Shulttleworth , Cowie 1997 : 58~ 59) Foreignization refers to the translation strategy that the translator first considers his loyalty to the author and the original text, so the translation will preserve the language characteristics and cultural customs of the original text. The use of foreignization translation strategy will not only make readers have "exotic" reading experience so as to help them better understand cultural differences，at the same time，it also enrich the target language. Many foreign words and expressions have been well integrated into the target language and used in people's daily life. The example of foreignization in Fang Mengzhi's a dictionary of translation studies, such as "time is money", comes from the foreignization of "time is money" in English. Many foreign words have been widely spread and used in Chinese. （Fang Mengzhi 2004: 3）

Domestication and foreignization are indispensable translation methods in cross-cultural translation. Domestication can invisibly introduce foreign cultural ideas into the country without causing exotic reading experience or bringing reading barriers to target language readers, thus increasing the readability of the text. However, with the advent of globalization, blindly domesticating other languages is a way of showing ethnocentrism, which is actually a kind of cultural aggression of other country. Venuti believes that the domestication is to use smooth translation strategy to hide the domestication in the transparency of the translation. This is not a cultural exchange but an act of culuture violence under the cover of domestication strategy with ethnocentric ideas, that is, tampering and cultural appropriation. (Fang Mengzhi 2004: 96）Therefore, foreignization has become an increasingly important translation strategy in the process of translation. For culture-loaded words, adopting foreignization translation strategy can not only accurately express the meaning of the sentence, but also promote the spread of Chinese culture, so as to promote the mutual understanding and communication between the East and the West. Therefore, foreignization is gradually accepted by people and more widely used in the world.

A study on the English Translation of Culture Loaded Words in The Spring Festival written by Fang Huawen Based on Domestication and Foreignization Strategies

The prose The Spring Festival contains many traditional Chinese festival culture-loaded words such as poems, idioms, proverb and so on, so in the process of translation, appropriate methods and strategies should be selected. For these Chinese culture-loaded words, the English translation is not completely corresponding to the original text. For example, some Chinese culture-loaded words have Chinese cultural connotations but are not reflected in the translation, and the sentence format in the original text is not completely corresponding in the translation. Based on the classification of culture-loaded words mentioned above, this essay analyzes the ecological culture-loaded words, material culture-loaded words, social culture-loaded words, religious culture-loaded words and language culture-loaded words in Fang Huawen's The Spring Festival on the theoretical basis of domestication and foreignization translation strategies.

Ecological Culture-loaded Words

Some words describing nature, environment, animals and plants are called ecological culture-loaded words. In the prose, the author used nature words "火树银花" to describe the scene of the Lantern Festival with bright lights. Literally, "火树" means the fire trees, "银花" means the silver flowers. If the translator uses the foreignization translation strategy to transliterate the sentence, the foreign readers who don't know the Chinese culture may not understand the meaning of the sentence, and will be confused. This is not a tree or flower, but a scene of bright lights. Therefore, the translator adopts the domestication translation strategy and translates it into "fireworks and laterns were everywhere to be seen", "火树" refer to the trees are covered with colorful lights, and "银花" refer to brightly lit scene.

Material Culture-loaded Words

Material culture-loaded words refer to some words used for material production, such as medicinal wine, units of weights and measures mentioned in the prose.

Example 1: "爆竹声中一岁除，春风送暖入屠苏。"

Translation: Firecrackers are sending the old year away; People are toasting in warm breeze.

The sentence quoted the famous poem New Year's Day by Song Dynasty poet Wang Anshi, which depicted a lively scene during the Spring Festival. The word "Tusu"(屠苏) has great cultural connotation. "Tusu" is a kind of medicinal wine, called Tusu wine. According to Chinese legend, Tusu wine was first invented by hua Tuo, a famous doctor in the Eastern Han Dynasty. It is generally drunk on the first day of the first month, which plays a role in strengthening the body and defeating diseases. Therefore, drinking it on the first day of the New Year also conveys people's best wishes for the New Year that everyone can stay away from diseases and be healthy. It implied a wish, just as people in the western culture also toast on festivals, so the translator replaced the literal translation of Tusu with the familiar word toasting.

Example 2: 曾架起一座二十丈的灯山。

Translation: ...was built up a mountain of lanterns to celebrate the festival, nearly 70 meters high.

In the sentence, "二十丈", that is twenty Zhang. Zhang is a unit of length used in ancient China. The use of Chinese length units has evolved with the changes of history. The units of measurement are closely related to life, they have appeared since the beginning of human beings. The primitive people used fingers as inches, palms as feet, and stretching elbows as feet. Then Qin Shihuang unified the measurement and till now the appearance of modern measurement technology today, the evolution of ancient measurement system reflects the changes of history. In English, there is no length unit of Zhang. Therefore the translator used the domestication translation strategy that converted 20 Zhang into 70 meters.

Social Culture-loaded Words

The use of social culture-loaded words reflects the specific social background of the certain period. For example, the appellation or title of people is a significant part of social culture-loaded words. In this prose, the titles of the two ancient emperors "汉武帝" and "唐睿宗" are mentioned. The translator's translation of the ruler is as follows:

Example 1：自从汉武帝以来...。

Ever since the Emperor Wu's Reign of Han Dynasty.

Example 2：唐睿宗时，长安的皇宫外庆贺元宵节

During Emperor Ruizong's Reign in Tang Dynasty there just outside the royal palace in Changan.

In Chinese history, from the Han Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty, the posthumous title of the emperor is generally used, which summarized the deeds and morality of the deceased. For example, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, whose posthumous title is "Wu", praised the moral character of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. From the Tang and Song Dynasties to the Yuan Dynasty, the temple name of the emperor was used as the appellation. Temple name is the name given by later generations when they worship in the temple after the death of the ancient emperor. For example, the temple name of the founding emperor is Gaozu or Taizu, such as song Taizu. For the successor, the last word is always Zong, which means to maintain the achievements of the predecessors. For example, Tang Ruizong's temple name is "Rui", which praises his wise. In English translation, the translator uses foreignization to translate the posthumous title "Wu" of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and the temple name "Rui" of Ruizong of the Tang Dynasty. Although the title of emperor is different from that of Di and Zong in Chinese, translator all uses the word emperor.

Example 3: 其外形有"哪吒闹海""孙悟空""猪八戒"和"沙僧"。

Translation: lanterns in forms of Nazha's Adventure in East Sea, Monkey King, Pigsy, Sha Wujing.

The words in historical allusions and legends have great social and cultural connotation. "哪吒闹海"is an ancient Chinese legend."孙悟空", "猪八戒" and "沙僧" are main characters in Journey to the West, one of China's four greatest master pieces. Chinese people have watched TV dramas or books about these characters since childhood, so they are familiar with them. However, for foreign readers, they are not familiar with these characters or plots, so it may perplex them if you don't explain the culture background here. The translator adopted the foreignization translation strategy to directly translate "孙悟空" into "Na Zha's adventure in the East Sea", "孙悟空"into the well-known Monkey King, "猪八戒" into Pigsy, and "沙僧" into his name Sha Wujing. Literal translation may confuse readers who do not understand these legends and stories, so notes can be added, that is, Nazha (a divine warrior in Chinese mythology). And Monkey King, Pigsy, Sha Wujing (main characters in Chinese classics pilgrimage to the West).

Religious Culture-loaded Words

Example 1：死后玉皇大帝封他为"斩祟将军"

And was appointed "ghost-killler general" by God of all gods after his death.

In the translation, the translator uses domestication translation theory to translate "玉皇大帝" into God of All Gods. In Chinese culture, people believe that there are ruler and gods in heaven, and "玉皇大帝" is the leader of the gods in Chinese Taoist mythology. In addition to ruling all gods, "玉皇大帝" also governs the affairs of the universe. People regard "玉皇大帝" as the "emperor" in heaven, the supreme ruler of the world of all gods. In western culture, religions are numerous and varied. Ancient Greece is the land of pantheism, the ancient Greeks advocated many gods. Zeus is regarded as God of all gods and the supreme ruler of the gods in the Greek mythology. Several popular Western religions, such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam are monotheism, holding the belief that God is the only creator of the world. God is conceived of as the Supreme Being and principal object of faith. So the use of domestication can not only express the same meaning of the sentence, but also adapt to the religious culture in the west.

Example 2: 旧岁的最后一天叫"大年三十”，因"除旧岁”而得名除夕。

Translation: The last day of the old year, Danianshanshi in Chinese, is called Farewell Day, as the old year is sent away this day.

The phrase "旧岁”, "岁”is not only refers to the age, but also means year. "旧岁" refers to the past year. The last day of the year, called "岁除", and the night of the day is called "除夕". 除夕, the original meaning of "New Year's Eve", refers to the end of the year to usher in the new. New Year's Eve is a time for family reunion. Like Tomb-sweeping Day, Ghost Festival and the Double Ninth Festival, New Year’s Eve is a traditional Chinese festival for ancestor worship. This sentence uses the combination of domestication and foreignization. The use of foreignization preserves the cultural image and promotes the culture exchange.

Language Culture-loaded Words

Chinese idioms usually contain the essence of language and have Chinese characteristics. Many of them use figures of speech such as metaphor. A metaphor is a comparison of something you want to say with something that has similar characteristics. In idioms, metaphors are used to describe the characteristics of something to make it vivid, so as to trigger the association of readers. The idiom in the prose like "像箭一般冲出去了", means that the children rush out quickly, but also shows that the children eager to go outside. In Chinese culture, the arrow(箭) is often used to describe high speed. For example, the idiom "离弦之箭" is used to describe high speed. "离弦之箭" refers to Time flies quikly. But there is no equivalent like arrow in English. In English, words like "bullet" or "cheetah" or "rocket ship" are used for things that are fast. Therefore, in order for readers to better understand the meaning of the sentence, the translator uses the domestication method to paraphrase as "dash out", "dash" is an act of running or moving very quickly or hastily, Although the cultural connotation of the source language is sacrificed in this way, the translator faithfully expresses the meaning of the source language.

Conclusion

This essay finds that the prose includes plenty of culture-loaded words, which contains extensive and profound meaning about traditional Chinese culture and customs. This essay introduces the Spring Festival, the most important traditional festival in China, as well as various activities prepared by Chinese people for the Festival and customs they adhere to, which largely spread Chinese culture, promote cultural exchanges in the world, and greatly enhancing the strength of Chinese culture. For this essay, using Fang Huawen's translation text as the analysis object, analyze the translation strategies of translator used about different kinds of culture-loaded words, that is, ecological culture-loaded words, material culture-loaded words, social culture-loaded words, religious culture-loaded words and language culture-loaded words. According to Venuti's translation theory, he advocates that translators should more use foreignization to preserve the cultural connotation of the source language. However, the translator Fang Huawen adopts the domestication translation strategy more frequently, choosing the cultural images familiar to the target language readers in order to resonate with the target language readers and make the target language readers get roughly the same reading effect like the source language readers. At the smae time, culture-loaded words have complex cultural images, if the target language readers do not understand the cultural connotation behind the words, they will not be able to get the real meaning of the text, and may even misunderstand the text mistakenly. When using domestication strategies, translators most commonly use free translation, in which they replace culture-loaded words in the original text with words and expressions more familiar to the target language readers, so as to improve the readability of the translated text and reduce readers' reading barriers. For example he translates the character of Chinese legend "玉皇大帝”into"God of the gods”that are more familiar to the target language readers. However, with the development of globalization, foreignization is increasingly used in translation. When the translator encountered some characteristic culture-loaded words, he chose literal translation, such as "Danianshanshi". Although the translator uses foreignization translation strategy to bring strangeness to the target language readers, it not only retains the traditional image of Chinese culture, but also meets the needs of cultural communication in the world. Foreignization can not only express the meaning of the source language, but also retain the characteristics of the national language. Domestication and foreignization are interactive and not completely opposite. Translators can combine foreignization and domestication in translating culture-loaded words. When translating culture-loaded words, the translator can not only use foreignization translation strategy to retain the cultural image and language connotation of the original text, but also use domestication translation strategy to make the translated text easy to understand and readable.

References

Nida Eugene(1993). Language,culture,and Translating [M].Shanghai:Foreign Language Education Press.

Shulttleworth, Cowie(1997). The Dictionary of Translation Studies [M]. St. Jerome Publishing.

Venuti, L(1995).The Transltor’s Invisibility [M]. London&Newyork:Routledge.

Fang Huawen 方华文(2014). 中外散文诗歌佳作选译与鉴赏 Translation and Appreciation of Chinese& Foreign Selected Famous Proses and Poems [M]. 合肥：安徽科学技术出版社 Hefei: Anhui Science & Technology Press.

Fang Mengzhi 方梦之(2011). 中国译学大辞典The Dictionary of Translation Studies in China [M]. 上海：上海外语教育出版社 Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Yu Qiuyu 余秋雨(2012). 何谓文化What is Culture [M]. 武汉：长江文艺出版社 Wuhan: Changjiang Literature and Art Press.

Written by --Yin Huizhen (talk) 04:21, 9 December 2021 (UTC)