Cult Load Words EN 3

Culture Loaded Words

Overview Page of Culture Loaded Words

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Key Words

Culture-loaded Words；Functional Equivalence；The Cathay；Ezra Pound

关键词

文化负载词；功能对等理论；华夏集；庞德

Culture-loaded Words

Definition of Culture-loaded Words

Different culture has different histories, and during its historical changes, each country will have its own culture, unique and distinctive. As a result, each country has many unique things, including but not limited to habits, language and rhetoric, religious beliefs, authorities and so on. To a certain extent, the words that describe these things can only be understood by the people who live in that country. The denotations and connotations of these words have been endowed by the indigenous people of different countries，and these words are culture-loaded words. "culture-loaded words are words, phrases and idioms that signify something specific to a culture" (Liao Qiyi, 2000).The birth of these words inevitably comes from the unique habits of different people in different countries" (Liao Qiyi, 2000: 232). For instance, '鱼服', which appears in a famous Chinese poem '采薇', refers to a kind of bag made from fish skin, and this was a tool used in warfare in ancient China to hold arrows. The tool is unique to China and was created through the experience and simple wisdom of the ancient Chinese people. It is unique to China, and such a tool, obviously,is culture-loaded, which people of other nations do not possess and cannot understand. This is a culture-loaded term that needs explanation in order to be understood by other peoples.

Classification of Culture-loaded Words

A number of scholars, both nationally and internationally, have classified culture-loaded words. Given that Eugene A. Nida’s classification of culture- loaded words has been influential, who is a distinguished American linguist and translator，and his five categories of texts are relatively parallel. This paper classifies the culture-loaded words in Cathay according to Nida's classification of culture-loaded words. According to Naida's classification, culture-loaded words can be divided into five categories: ecocultural-loaded words,physical material culture-loaded words, sociocultural-loaded words, religious culture-loaded words, and linguistic culture-loaded words(Nida,1993)

The Translation methods of culture-loaded words

By its very nature, translation is an intercultural activity, and as such the aim of translation is to transmit what is expressed in the culture of the original language to the culture of the target language. In fact, there is no strictly fixed formula for this process of cultural transmission. However, after many years of translation activity, there are broad categories of translation methods that people use. These classifications can help translators to clarify their thinking and to translate better. Therefore, some of the translation methods used in Cathay are listed here as follows. Firstly, A direct translation, as the name suggests, is a word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence translation. The direct translation method is a way that can best preserve the meaning of the original text among all translation methods, and it is also the method that is most frequently used in translation. Due to differences in culture, lifestyle and other aspects, there may not be many identical correspondences between Chinese and English, but if possible, using a direct translation is literally the best strategy. For instance, the Chinese phrase "大锅飯" can be translated directly as "big pot system"; Chinese readers also mostly understand the English phrase "black horse "in English.Secondly,Substitution,the replacement of culture-loaded words in the original language with words from the target language, is a method with mixed advantages and disadvantages The advantage of the substitution method is that it makes it easier for readers of the target language to understand the meaning of the original text by using words that are familiar to them.However, the disadvantage of this method is that it is difficult to find a proper relevant cultural expressions in the culture of the target language, making it difficult to disseminate the culture of the original country, and even causing the readers of the target language to misunderstand the culture of the original country and believe that the cultural habits of the two countries are the same.Thirdly,Phonetic translation means using words with a similar or identical pronunciation to the original language instead of the words used in the original language in order to achieve the translation effect desired by the translator. The use of phonetic translations can actually help a country's culture to reach out, but they are not easily understood by readers in the target language. This is why transliteration is often used in conjunction with an annotation, while it is not always necessary. For example, '沙发' in Chinese is a phonetic translation of the English word,and the Chinese word '粽子‘ can also be directly translated as “zongzi” in English. Fourthly，Paraphrasing refers to the use of the target language to explain the original text. Paraphrasing can, to the greatest extent， possible preserve the meaning of the original language. The paraphrase, however, has its disadvantage that it is difficult to preserve the structure of the poem in its lucidity and elegance. This includes the difficulty of preserving some of the rhythmic and prosodic forms, so sometimes lucidity and elegance need to be sacrificed to preserve expressiveness. For example, the Chinese phrase "八寶粽子", when translated into English, is translated as "Glutinous Rice Dumpling with Eight-Treasure".Fifth,Creative rebellion refers to the process of translation in which the translator consciously 'distorts' the meaning of the original language so the translation can become more understandable to the reader or can be more easily expressed by the translator himself. For example, Zhai Lisi（Herbert Allen Giles）In his translation of Early Spring in the East of the City, he translates the word '新春' as 'early May'.This seems to be a 'mistranslation' of the original text, but the fact that the chronology is different in Central Europe makes this translation more helpful to Western readers. Thus, although such a translation "distorts" the apparent meaning of the original, it is a better way of conveying the true meaning of the text.Sixth, In literary translation, 'annotation' is a common method of translation because it is difficult to translate the 'quotations' of Chinese and Western cultures in just a few words. The translator will therefore often add annotations in their translations. For example, in the beginning, when Chinese readers were not aware of cloning technology,the term clone was translated as "cloning (a method of asexual reproduction)" ,which is a combination of "phonetic" and "apostrophe". Seventh, Generalisation refers to a method of translation in which a more refined range of things is translated to encompass a wider range of meanings. Generally speaking, such translations lose the nuance and precision of the original. However, it can be used when necessary. For example, the translator translates "lily" as "flower",which is a kind of "generalisation".Eighth,Omission is not a very common translation technique,However, when translating from Chinese to English, in order to make the translation more concise and easier for Western readers to read, translators will choose to use omission. The translation of Cathay is a paradigm of omission.