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Group 5

肖玉 Xiao Yu Jenny 女 Special:Contributions/Xiao_Yu

功能目的论下中国古诗的归化与异化 Domestication and Foreignization of Ancient Chinese Poetry under Skopos Theory

Chinese poetry plays an extremely important role in the difficult task of spreading Chinese culture. there are many debates about the strategies of domestication and foreignization in its translation. In this paper, the two strategies are weighed from the perspective of skopos theory, and the differences in the use of translation strategies are analyzed in the light of different translation purposes and translation audiences.

Advertisement Translation guided by the Functionalist Translation theory

谢芹芹 Xie Qinqin, 202030097006.

Abstract

In today's increasingly competitive market economy, it is not enough for companies to have quality products and services, but good advertising has also become an essential means of promotion. Traditional advertising translations cannot adapt to the highly purposeful and specific style of advertisements, and thus fail to achieve the effect of attracting customers. Functionalist translation theory, on the other hand, takes full account of the linguistic and cultural differences between the translated language and the original, leaving translators free to adopt different approaches in their translation practice and providing a new perspective for translation research. This thesis uses German functionalist approaches as theoretical framework throughout. By analyzing their main theories, their essence can be applied in advertising translation.

Key Words

Functionalist Translation theory; Advertisement; Translation

题目

功能翻译理论指导下的广告翻译

摘要

在市场经济竞争日益激烈的今天，企业仅有优质的产品和服务是不够的，好的广告也成为必不可少的宣传手段。传统的广告翻译无法适应广告的高度目的性和特殊风格，因而无法达到吸引顾客的效果。而功能翻译理论充分考虑到了译文和原文之间的语言和文化差异，使译者在翻译实践中可以自由采用不同的方法，为翻译研究提供了一个新的视角。本文以德国功能翻译理论为理论框架贯穿始终，通过对其主要理论的分析，将其理论的精髓运用于广告的翻译中。

关键词

功能翻译理论；广告；翻译

Introduction

With the rapid development of economic globalization, advertising has gradually become one of the largest, fastest and most widespread mediums of information transmission to drive the process of foreign trade in China. Not only does it convey the characteristics, functions and uses of products to domestic audiences in a multimodal manner through various mass media, such as television, radio and newspapers, thus serving to stimulate consumers' desire to buy and prompt the implementation of consumer behavior, but at the same time it also enhances the company's visibility and reputation abroad, opening up a new path for the development of major enterprises and institutions in foreign countries.

As advertising occupies a pivotal position in China's foreign trade and market economy system, advertising translation has also gradually attracted the attention of major enterprises and linguists, as it not only contains economic value, but also has the value of appreciation and research. The study of advertising translation under the guidance of functionalist translation theory has profound theoretical significance and practical value.

In terms of theory, it attempts to apply Functionalist translation theory to the study of advertising translation, with a view to improving the quality of advertising translation. As a large number of scholars have studied advertising translation from different perspectives, this study prompts translators to pay close attention to the functionalist approach in the translation process. Therefore, this study is certainly of great theoretical importance.

In practice, this thesis applies the functionalist translation theory to advertising translation. It discusses the principle concepts of advertising translation on the basis of a functionalist translation theory. At the same time, it tries to find a better way to guide the translation of advertisements in practice. In addition, the thesis discusses strategies for improving advertisement translation based on references to some examples of advertisements.

Chapter 1 Functionalist Translation Theory

Function-oriented translation research became popular in the 1970s and was introduced to China in the 1990s. It takes the intended function of the target text as a criterion. Functionalist theory has had a profound impact on translation research in China. Before the theory was introduced to China, people mainly focused on traditional Chinese translation theories, especially Yan Fu's three-character translation principles, namely faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance. At first, some scholars were skeptical of functionalist theory because it was incompatible with traditional theories. Over time, functionalist theory has been widely discussed among translation scholars and has attracted much attention for its new perspective on translation. In recent years, more and more translators and scholars have begun to accept and develop this theory. One main reason is that it plays the most important role in translation research. In addition, the functionalist approach to translation studies has not only brought new dimensions but also broadened the horizons of translators.

1.1 Background of the Theory

Since functionalist translation theory did not emerge overnight, a brief description of its background is necessary to give us an idea of how it emerged. Translation was once considered to be an art or craft. However, in the 1960s, due to the profound influence of the discipline of linguistics, the study of translation was defined as a science and became linguistically oriented. By the 1970s, the basic linguistic trend was not broken, although the focus shifted from words or phrases to the text as the unit of translation. (Nord, 2004:7) One thing that most linguistically oriented translation theories have in common is the core concept of translation equivalence. (Hornby, 1995:15) However, translation theories based on equivalence also have their weaknesses. The most important point is the huge gap between theory and translation practice. The theory based on equivalence focuses on the source text, according to which the features of the source text must be preserved in the target text, and the target text must be equivalent to the source text. In practice, however, for centuries translators have argued that the process of translation should involve two procedures: in one case faithful reproduction of the quality of the source text and in the other case adaptation to the target audience. (Nord, 2004:9) Therefore, equivalence-based translation theory excludes many translation phenomena such as adaptation from the field of translation studies, thus making it difficult to describe some common phenomena in translation studies. As a result, some scholars began to question the equivalence-based translation theory. A new theory was called into being. This was the functionalist approach that emerged in 1970, which aimed to break the linguistic translation theory and bridge the gap between theory and practice.

1.2.1 Reiss's Text-type Theory

In 1974, Katharina Reiss got her PhD in the University of Mayence. She is one of the important personages about contemporary translation. She has devoted herself to the most predominant work on the significance of text types for translation. Reiss's method deals with the text instead of the word or the sentence as the translation unit and accordingly the level at which equivalence is to be explored.

According to Reiss, she generalizes and describes the text types, namely, the informative text, the expressive text and the operative text. The content of the informative text is the primary focus. The expressive text mainly focuses on innovative text and aesthetics. The focus of the operative text is ‘appellative'. The form of language is always interlocutory. (Katharina Reiss and Hans J. Vermeer, 2014)

Reiss associates the three functions with their language dimensions' and to the text types or communicative circumstances in which they are utilized. It appears that though other categories can be suggested for a variety of purposes, they do not change the role of informative, expressive and operative function as the elementary categories. Reiss also believes that the three categories cover every written text, i.e., texts with more than one function.

The text-type theory gives prominence to the communicative role of texts. Accordingly, a translation is mainly a communicative service for the target language receivers. The texts can be classified depending on their function. Reiss also holds that the text is not regarded as the elementary unit. On the contrary, texts have the communicative function. It is the function that decides how a text should be translated.

1.2.2 Justa Holz-Manttari and Theory of Translation Action

The translational action model, put forward by Justa Holz-Manttari, stresses the process of translating instead of the translated version. It puts the translator into a wider social context. Holz-Manttari holds that it is not about translating words, sentences or texts but in every case about guiding the intended collaboration over cultural obstacles. It is not explicit how the latter can be accomplished without doing the former.

Holz-Manttari emphasizes the communicative translation process especially. The roles and players are the promoter, the commissioner, the ST producer, the TT producer, the TT user and the TT receiver. Besides, she holds that the source text and target text can be completely separated.

Each player has their own specific primary and secondary targets. A main reason is that translatorial action produces a TT that is functionally communicative and functionally appropriate in the target culture. In the meantime, it places translation in its socio-cultural context which involves the interaction effect between the translator and the institution that emphasizes it functionality.

1.2.3 Vermeer's Skopos Theory

The Skopos theory has been developed in Germany since the 1970s. It marks a shift from primarily linguistic to a more functional concept of translation. The Skopos theory, as a technical term, derives from the Greek word‘Skopos'. Hans J. Vermeer introduced it into translation theory in the 1970s. It gives prominence to the purpose of the translation, which decides the translation strategies to be advocated. The main view of this functional approach is that it is not the source text that determines the translation process, but the expected function of the target text that determines the translation process.

Vermeer supposes that it should be the designed purpose of the target text that determines translation approaches and strategies in his ‘Framework for a General Translation Theory' (1978). From the hypothesis, Vermeer derivers the Skopos rule: Human action, including translation, is determined by its intention. Vermeer also puts forward two further general rules, namely, the coherence rule and the fidelity rule. The Skopos rule is the top-rank principle, the coherence rule and the fidelity rule subordinate to it. The coherence rule is that the target text should be adequately coherent to allow the intended users to understand it, given their assumed background knowledge and situational circumstances. The fidelity rule may emphasize intertextual coherence between target text and the source text, and stipulates simply that some relationship should remain.

More often than not, the Skopos needs to be stated definitely or undemonstratively in the commission. Vermeer takes the commission as a goal and the conditions that the goal should be achieved, both of which should be consulted between the commissioner and the translator. By this means, the translator should advise the commissioner or client on the feasibility of the aim.

1.2.4 Nord's Function plus Loyalty

Another important scholar who helps spread the influence of functionalist approaches is Christiane Nord. She was the first of the‘German School' functionalist scholars to write in English. Her first English book was Text Analysis in Translation (1991). In this book, she elaborated a'translation-oriented model of text analysis in: translation.' (Chen Xiaowei,2000)

Christiane Nord graduated from Heidelberg University in 1967 and got a Ph. D in Romance Language in 1983. She has turn into one of the most influential international personages in translation training and a major contributor to international collaboration.

Nord (1991) introduced a novel function-plus-loyalty model as a complement to Skopos theory. Moreover, it merely means a relationship holding between the source text and the target text. Function-plus-loyalty theory proposes that the translator should be loyal to the target readers.

Nord's adherence to Skopos theory implies she places prime emphasis on the purpose of the target text. Nord also makes a distinction between two primary types of translation process，namely, documentary translation and instrumental translation, documentary translation.

1.3 Advantages of the Theory

Traditional translation theories all take the original text as the starting point and the translation as the ending point, and in such translation theories, the yardstick to measure the quality of the translation is usually the original text. In contrast, by reversing the procedure of translation, the functionalist translation theory has put forward a more feasible translation model with the purpose theory as the core, and opened up a pluralistic standard of translation criticism with greater theoretical inclusiveness. The emergence of this theory reflects a comprehensive shift in translation research, i.e., from the previously dominant linguistic and form-oriented view of translation to a more functionally and socio-culturally oriented view of translation, and it can be said that the impact of functional translation theory on the translation community is global and groundbreaking, playing an irreplaceable and important role in the further improvement of translation theory.

Chapter 2 Advertisement and Advertisement Translation

In recent years, as the world economy is developing rapidly, goods from one country flow more frequently and freely into another. Advertisement has penetrated into every aspect of people's life through various channels. we watch it on television; hear it on radio, read it in newspapers, in magazines, on billboards or poster as well as on wrappings, bottles, T-shirts, the sides of buses, etc. It is no exaggeration to say that there are few places in the public without advertisements. Advertisement affects different aspects of our life，and plays an inestimable role in promoting the development of national economy and flourishing market. This influence will continue to grow. Since China’s reform and opening up, more and more multinational companies have come to invest in the immense markets of China viewing, advertisement as an indispensable and direct measure to serve economy. The intimate relationship between advertisement and economy as well as society has also made it an important subject for the study of the translation of advertisements. Thus advertisement translation has become a fast growing industry in modern society.

2.1 Definition of Advertisement

The word ‘advertise’stems from the Latin ‘advertere’, means‘to make known to the public’. Plenty of experts and scholars have reflected on the meaning of the word in different versions of its use. According to webster's Dictionary, advertisement is the activity of calling something to the attention of the public, especially by paid announcements.

In the opinion of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), advertisement is a paid form of mass communication, aiming at offering information, altering others’ attitudes to advertised products，inducing others to get action and at last making profits for the advertisers. (Gu Jiazu, 2000:120)

American Marketing Association (AMA) defines advertisement as‘the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.’ (Zhao Jing, 1992:1)

2.2 Characteristics of advertisement

Vestergaard and Sehroder hold that advertising takes many forms, but in most of them language is of great importance. Besides, the charming of language of advertising lies in its balanced, untidy, related, brief, complex and implied beauty. So it can help improve the understanding and designing of successful advertisements by studying the characteristics of English advertising thoroughly and theoretically.

Advertising language is a loaded language，that is to say，an eye-catching advertising should possess a persuasive or informative power. The thesis intends to analyze the special style by numerous advertising examples from three areas, namely, lexical level, grammatical level and rhetorical level.

2.3 Functions of Advertisement

According to the Association of National Advertising in the United States, the purpose of advertising consists of four words: awareness, comprehension, conviction and action (Zhao Jing, 1992:6).

Under Buhler's categorization of the functions of language: informative, expressive and appellative, Reiss put forward her functionalist approach to text typology. Advertisements fall into the operative text which focuses on the target receivers. American advertising criticism Vance Pankard said that most of us are unconsciously influenced and controlled by advertising in daily life (Yao Xi, 2002:11).

2.4 Advertisement Translation

Advertising is a kind of commercial activity with a specific goal, which is extremely purposeful. Its purpose is to convey information and win consumers, thus attracting their eyes and leading to their purchasing activities, which is the sole purpose of advertising. Functional translation theory holds that the intended purpose and function of the translation determines the method of translation. The most important function of advertising is to convey information about goods or services to consumers for the purpose of promotion. Since promotion is the ultimate purpose of advertising behavior, the primary purpose of commercial advertisement translation is to: cross the cultural barrier and realize the promotional function of the source language advertisement in the target language culture. Generally speaking, advertisements must follow the KISS principle, i.e.,‘keep it short and sweet’. Advertisements should be simple to save investment on the one hand and to facilitate consumer acceptance on the other. Consumers of different cultures have different value orientations, so the style of advertisements may also vary depending on the region and cultural background. When translating advertisements, translators should pay special attention to understanding the advertising norms of the target language culture, so that the translation style can meet the taste of the readers of the translated language. In other words, the advertisement translation should follow the advertising style of the translated language, respect the culture of the translated language, and pay attention to the reflection of the readers of the translated text. Only in this way can we ensure that the advertisement translation can achieve its expected function, effectively introduce the products to the consumers of the translated language and urge them to purchase the products.

2.4.1 Simplicity of Advertisement Translation

In order to attract more readers' attention, advertising language should follow the principle of simplicity, so that readers can easily identify and remember. Simple advertising language can convey the same amount of information in a limited space and time to reduce the cost of advertising. For example: Wings (Motorola Mobile Communications). Connecting people (Nokia cell phones). Two short words can convey the functional message of Nokia phones in a second, making a memorable impression. This instant effect is good for the product to gain consumers' favor in the promotion. (Lu Quan, 2000:54) Therefore, in the Chinese translation of the advertisement, it is required that the translation is also vivid and infectious, so that the readers of the translation can understand and appreciate the translation as much as the readers of the original text understand and appreciate the original text, and fully realize the promotional function of the advertisement.

2.4.2 The extensive use of rhetorical devices

The extensive use of rhetorical devices such as metaphor, metonymy and exaggeration in the English-Chinese advertising style makes the advertising phrases vivid, attracting people's attention to the advertised products and stimulating their desire and purchasing behavior. Therefore, it is very important for the translator to be able to reproduce the meaning and connotation of the original text with refreshing phrases.

Chapter 3 Advertisement Translation guided by the Functionalist Translation theory

The thesis intends to demonstrate the feasibility of applying functionalist theory to advertising translation studies in this chapter. And then it will list the possible translation strategies in the process of advertising translation in the light of the functionalist translation theory by citing a lot of advertising examples.

3.1 The Concept of Translational Action in Advertising Translation

We communicate effectively with others through verbal language as well as nonverbal language. Advertising translation also involves cross-culture communication. Functionalist approaches mainly concentrate on the process of translating instead of translated version. It puts the translating into a broader social context. Additionally, it considers the relationship between the translator and the client, the relationship between the translator and the original author and the relationship between the translator and the reader. Accordingly, if a translator wants to create the optimum advertisement, it usually depends on his professional skill and specialized knowledge of the target culture.

3.1.1 The Rule of the Skopos

The concept of skopos means the purpose of the target text. Functionalist approaches propose that the translation purpose justifies the translation process, namely, the end justifies the means. The advertisement has a clear purpose. It not only informs the prospective consumers of the advertised products or services but also persuades them into take action. The translation of the advertisement tries to achieve the purpose set by the commissioner. In other words, it aims at satisfying the needs of different market segments and gaining a larger market share. So the advertiser should design an advertisement to target the potential customers.

As Vermeer proposes, the translation thus has to be comprehensible, in the right sense, to the expected readership, i.e., the set of addressees. There is no question that such ‘pragmatic texts’ must be goal-oriented, and so are their translations.(Vermeer, 2000:226)

In her view, when translators begin to translate advertisements，the strategies are open to them. So which strategy should be adopted depends heavily on the purpose of the commission. The function is mainly to urge the prospective consumers to make a purchase. The advertisement should be translated in such a way that the function is achieved. In most circumstances it can be done by adopting the appropriate translation strategies and techniques.

3.1.2 The Role of the Source-text in Advertisement Translation

The source text plays a major role in the process of advertising translation. Without the source text, there would be no translation at all. A competent translator should be based on the original text in advertising translating.

Vermeer insists that the source text is considered as a mere offer of information. Nevertheless, it cannot prove that the original text is not important in Vermeer's approach. If a translator intends to make the translated version achieve the expected purpose, he will thoroughly analyze and explore the source text. Only by doing so, can he draw up correct and informed decisions concerning the questions such as what part of the original is necessary, or what kinds of meanings of the original must be kept, or what kinds of strategies and techniques should be adopted in a specific translation. And these choices in turn are significant to the fulfillment of the expected purpose of the translation. Hence, it cannot be denied that the original text should be brought to the forefront in functionalist approach. (Vermeer, 1987:541)

3.2 Two Suggested Strategies for Advertising Translation from the Functionalist Perspective

According to the Functionalist translation theory, translation is an action with clear purpose and intention. An intercultural exchange starts from the source text and aims at target text readers. The object of advertising translation is target-text reader with different cultures and customs. An advertisement is designed with the ultimate purpose of informing the prospective consumers of the advertised products or services and persuading them into take action. If the translator adopts the translation principle of‘faithfulness, expressiveness, elegance’, which lays emphasis on the original form and content, the translated version can't attain perfect effect. As a consequence, the task of translators is to inform the potential consumers of the advertised products or services and give the consumers a deep impression in advertising translation. The necessary conformance of original advertisement such as abridgement, adaption and addition should be taken in specific translation practice.

3.2.1 Addition

The term of addition means to add some information to the source text, including commenting, explaining and supplementing some information. Some information is conveyed briefly in the source text, especially the cultural information. Because the source readers are all too well aware of the information. However, in order to design a perfect translated version, translators usually add some information to the source text in the target text. Moreover, translators are supposed to elaborate on them to the target readers; otherwise, the background would confuse the target readers.

Source text: De Bierres: A diamond lasts forever. Translation:钻石恒久远，一颗永流传。

Chinese people are more inclined to read some beautiful and rhythmical advertisements，state of mind can become better. Suppose the translator merely translates the source text into“钻石恒永远”,Chinese consumers feel it so boring when reading the advertisement. As they have got accustomed to reading sentences of verbal parallelism，they feel that the translation is incomplete immediately. As a consequence, when translator adds the sentence, symmetrical structure of the sentence has a flowing sense about it. The following example is a further illustration.

Source text: Intel Pentium: intel inside. Translation: 英特尔奔腾:给电脑一颗奔腾的“芯”。

The underlined part“芯”is extra information in the translation. However, it plays a critical rule in the translated version, as it not only conveys the connotative meaning of the original text but also seems to indicate that the internal construction of computers is fair quality, which stimulates a desire in the audience to purchase the advertised product or services. The target text cannot attract customers without the additional information.

Even early theorists have also noticed the necessity of making the target text better than the source text for some text types. It is thus obvious that making some addition to the source text is acceptable in translation process in many instances so long as the translated version is conformable to the taste of the target readers. As Newmark states, although transferring the facts and this is frequently possible, the translator of advertising will try to make the text better than the original.

3.2.2 Omission

Omission means leaving out unimportant or uninteresting information from the source text to make the target text more memorable and pleasing to eye. In general, the strategy is applied in the translation of some Chinese advertising for the main reason that the English language is usually brief，precise and concise (Jia Wenbo 2004:42).

The purpose of omission is to achieve conciseness and bring the useful information into full play. As we know, English is characterized by brevity, getting rid of epideictic rhetoric while Chinese is more inclined to use modifiers and abounds and flowery words in advertising. Thus, sometimes it is necessary to adopt the translation strategy of omission in the process of E-C and C-E advertising translation. English and Chinese are from two different language families, they have their own habits and characteristics of grammar and they also embody two completely cultures. Chinese promote the harmonious development of human and nature of the concept of nature. Instead，Westerners may believe in the separation of nature from man. Additionally, Chinese has a greatest characteristic of common and smooth language, English is always terse and clear. More often than not, translators employ the strategy of omission for two reasons, one is to remove unimportant or uninteresting information; the other is to break down the cultural obstacles between different nations. See the following example of Long card of China Construction Bank:

Source text:衣食住行，有龙则灵。 Translation: Long Card makes your busy life easy.

3.2.3 Adaptive

Adaptive translation means that adjustments of the source text are made to comply with cultural norms, customs, linguistic characteristics and traditional values in the target culture. Needless to say, it is one of the efficient strategies to achieve the intended function in advertising translation. It is due to the fact that it mainly takes the target customers and cultural values and conventions into account. In most cases, translators copy the form of source version directly so that the translated version fails to meet the requirement of translation. Translators should make good use of various sources of information and adapt the source text to lay down the broad lines in view of the whole text. What's more, in order to achieve the purpose of translation, they should fully understand the significance of the relationship between source text and target text and convey the information of the source text in the translated version artfully. Only in this way can the translated version appeal to the target readers. There are some examples to illustrate this point. a. Connecting people! Nokia诺基亚，科技以人为本。 b. Go my own way. 运动休闲，我行我素。 c．我有我的品质. What we do, we do well. English advertising possesses its own linguistic characteristic. The first feature is at linguistic level. We all know that the purpose of advertising translation is to inform the target readers of the advertised products or services and persuade them to take action. Translation version should appeal to target readers in order to achieve the goal. As a result, the translation should be consistent with the linguistic features of advertising English at first. See the following example: 接天下客，送万里情。 Ready to meet guests from all over the world, Ready to speed them on their way. It is an advertisement for one company of Tianjin. However, English audiences cannot understand the translated version. The English version makes use of the words‘guests’,‘them’and‘their, English audiences are feeling that there is the distance between the consumers and the company. More often than not, English advertising more tends to use the second personal pronouns. It has a reputation to make sense of friendliness. Moreover，using the second personal pronouns can make the English audiences have a feeling of affinity to the company psychologically. Accordingly, It is better to change these words into‘you’and‘your’in the English version. Thus the translation should be Ready to meet you from all over the world, Ready to speed you on your way.

尹巧 Yin Qiao Frauke 女 Special:Contributions/Yin_qiao

Eine Studie über die Übersetzung chinesischer Eigennamen aus der Sicht der Newmark-Übersetzungstheorie 纽马克翻译理论视角下中国专有词汇的翻译研究

Abstract

Die chinesische Kultur ist weltweit einzigartig, und es gibt viele Wörter oder spezifische Ausdrücke, die im Westen nicht begrifflich erfasst werden. In der Alltagskommunikation und bei der Übersetzung werden einige Wörter direkt durch Pinyin ersetzt, und für einige Wörter gibt es spezifische Wörter, aber das Problem, das sich daraus ergibt, ist, dass es für den Leser schwierig ist, beim Lesen zu verstehen, wofür diese Wörter stehen, was das Verständnis anderer Texte beeinträchtigt. Wie diese spezifischen Wörter zu übersetzen sind, ist ein sehr schwieriges Problem. In diesem Artikel wird untersucht, wie diese geschützten chinesischen Wörter zu übersetzen sind, und es werden einige Lösungen im Lichte der Übersetzungstheorie von Newmark angeboten.

张迅 Zhang Xun Gisela 女 Special:Contributions/Zhang_Xun

浅谈功能学派翻译理论在口语中的运用——以美剧《无耻之徒》为例 Translation theory comes from the summary and thinking of translation practice, and can promote the development of translation theory in translation practice. Many translation theories are based on the study of literary translation. This article takes the American drama "Shameless" as an example to study in the translation of everyday spoken language.

赵通 Zhao Tong Toni 男 Special:Contributions/Zhaotong

Analysis of cultural differences and translation between China and the West with domestication and foreignization 以归化和异化翻译法解析中西方文化差异与翻译

Abstract

The differences in the thinking and consciousness of Chinese and western nations result in the great differences in the forms of language expression. Our country is more graceful and circuitous in the use of language, and its profound language culture can have multiple language meaning. Every word and word can have multiple language meaning. Western countries, on the other hand, are more direct in terms of language. There are significant differences between Chinese and Western languages in language and culture, which brings great challenges to language form conversion and translation. It is not advisable to translate English with Chinese thinking, or to translate Chinese with English thinking. Translation is not only a kind of language conversion, but also a kind of cross-cultural communication activity. To succeed in language conversion, translators must understand the relevant knowledge of Chinese and Western cultural background. The differences between Chinese and Western cultures are mainly reflected in the aspects of history, culture, customs, religious beliefs, values and so on. To solve the problem of cultural differences in translation is the key to ensure the success of translated works. Domestication and foreignization are commonly used strategies to deal with the influence of cultural differences on translation.

Key Words

Cultural difference Domestication and foreignization Translation

Human beings live in the same material world, and human language reflects the universal commonality of human beings. Although different national languages, they can use the same concept to appraise things and explain their meanings. It is this commonality that provides the feasibility basis for the cultural exchange of different nationalities and the translatability basis for the translation of different languages. However, since each national culture is formed historically in the survival and development of its own nation, it has distinct national characteristics and unique psychological structure of national culture, so translation cannot be restricted by national culture. Due to their different historical and cultural backgrounds, Chinese national culture and Western culture differ greatly in their modes of production, activities and thinking, as well as in their development levels.This is what we call a cultural difference. Due to the existence of cultural differences, the languages we use are not the same. According to statistics, there are more than 6,700 languages in the world. Under different language backgrounds, translation comes into being in order to facilitate communication and spread culture.Next, I will first discuss the main manifestations of cultural differences between China and the West.

1.Cultural Differences in Chinese language expression system

In the final analysis, translation is to reproduce the cultural information of the original text in the target text through interlingual conversion. Therefore, translation must be carried out with the help of language culture, which is based on the whole culture of various nationalities and cannot exist independently from the society on which it is produced and developed. Therefore, each national language inevitably has its own unique expressions which are closely related to its own national characteristics and cultural factors. The barriers to translation caused by cultural differences among different nationalities are firstly reflected in the language expression system.First, voice. In the world, I am afraid it is difficult to find two people whose phonemes are exactly the same and the movements of the articulatory organs are exactly the same. "Social nature is the essential attribute of speech" (modern Chinese). The most obvious difficulty of this phonetic difference in translation is the metrical devices used to achieve a certain sense of sound and rhythm in the poem. Alliteration, as widely used in English poetry, is absent in Chinese. No matter how good a translator is, it is difficult to keep the original sound, meaning and form intact after a translation procedure. Robort Frost said, "It is impossible to translate poetry in a poetic way."Second, grammar. Grammar plays a very important role in language, and its formation and development are closely related to the formation and development of the whole national culture. Therefore, each nation has its own set of grammatical structure rules and grammatical features, "grammar has national characteristics" (modern Chinese). For example, Chinese is a paratactic language. Unlike Indo-European languages, there are no complicated conjugations, conjugations, and morphological changes. Its tense and voice are distinguished only by adverbs, interjections, and auxiliary words. In translation, some tenses, voices and sentence patterns in English cannot even be accurately translated into Chinese. In this way, the information of the original language is lost in translation. It is common for the original text information to be damaged due to grammatical differences.Vocabulary. Vocabulary is the basic material of language structure and the most active part of language. Its dependence on national culture determines the difference in the scope of meaning of different language words. The name of a common thing common to one people is likely to be incomprehensible or not well understood to another people, and sometimes there is no proper word to explain it in the target language. For example, "cheongsam", which is traditionally worn by Chinese women, and words such as "mahjong", "qigong", "Wushan hat" and "wearing small shoes" have no equivalent in English, so strictly speaking, they are untranslatable. Similarly, some words in English have cultural conflicts in Chinese.Zhu Guangqian, a famous professor, once pointed out that "there is no Chinese equivalent to the English word gentleman". Mr. Qian Gechuan listed "privacy" as an untransliterable sentence, arguing that the dictionary translations of "recluse", "retreat", "secret", "inside", "unseen", etc., fail to express the subjective feeling of the word "privacy". In addition, China's long history of feudal society has a great influence on our national culture. From the structure of many modern Chinese characters can also find the traces left by feudal culture. For example, many Chinese characters with the word "female" as a partial radical, such as: slave, prostitute, siren, maid, prostitute, prostitute, piao, etc., all reflect the status of men and women in the feudal society of China, the structure of the Chinese characters itself has a certain cultural information, translated into phonetic text, it is difficult to convey its full meaning.In a word, the inequality caused by cultural differences in the linguistic expression system is obvious. The most convincing fact is that if a translated work is translated into the original language, it will definitely be a work very different from the original text. This phenomenon of the inequality of the linguistic expression system caused by cultural differences is obvious. Is an important factor in translation obstacles.

2.The difference between Chinese and Western literary image system

The national cultural characteristics of a work are mainly reflected in the literary images created by the author according to the artistic generalization of various phenomena in real life. Each literary image has certain ideological content and artistic appeal. Due to the differences in social history, cultural traditions and living habits, the literary images created by Eastern and Western writers are quite different. For example, British capitalist society has experienced various stages such as emergence, development and heyday, and each process of capitalism has left distinct traces in the field of literature. When we open the history of British literature, vivid characters representing various stages and stages of the development of capitalist society will appear vividly in front of readers.Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" in the sinister, vicious usury Shylock, Dickens's "Oliver Twist" in the abused orphan Oliver, Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" modest and have backbone, independent spirit of the orphan Jane Eyre, Hardy "Tess of the D 'Urbervilles" in the tragic character of Tess... Wait, they're all products of capitalist society. However, in China, which has not experienced a capitalist society and has a long feudal history, the characters written by writers are completely different. From Cao Xueqin's A Dream of Red Mansions to Ba Jin's Home, Spring, Autumn and Lu Xun's The True Story of Ah Q, all of their characters are products of feudal society.Therefore, in translation, how can the translator deeply understand these alien characters, accurately grasp their personalities determined by the social environment in which they live, and faithfully convey every tiny change in the psychology and behavior of the characters carefully described by the author to reflect their personality characteristics, so as to make these unfamiliar alien characters. It is not easy to be recognized and charming in a different nation and a different society.Secondly, the cultural traditions of China and the West are different, so are the sources of materials for writers to shape literary images. Many characters in European literature are based on ancient Greek and Roman myths and Bible stories, as well as many ancient legends of the Middle Ages. For example, the literary figure of Faust is a figure of medieval European legend on which literary works have been drawn since the late sixteenth century. Another example is Don Juan, a figure in medieval Spanish legend, who is the subject of more than 100 literary and musical works.There are also many figures in ancient Greek and Roman mythology, such as Cupid, god of love in ancient Roman mythology, and Apollo, god of the sun in Greek mythology, who are common figures in European literature. These figures and allusions in legends are relatively unfamiliar to the Chinese people, who have completely different cultural traditions, and they often need to be noted in translation. Otherwise the reader is in a fog. However, if the annotation is too short, the characteristics of these mythological figures and the context of allusions are often difficult to explain clearly; If the commentary is too long, it will be tedious, destroying the rhythm of the original work and diluting its artistic appeal.In addition, the difficulties brought by cultural differences to translation are more obvious in the rhetorical devices and ways of expression used by writers to shape literary images. For example, the translation of humorous words, puns, similes, metaphors and idioms with distinct national characteristics is often difficult to accurately and faithfully convey all the information of the original text. Without considering the rhetorical characteristics of the target language, the image expression of the original text is always easy to cause misunderstanding and even make people confused. Change the expression form of images, but also make the translated message is different from the original work, make the original work completely different.Thus, it can be seen that the unequal literary image system caused by cultural differences is another important factor that impedes translation.

3.Cultural differences between Chinese and Western actors (original author and translator)

The production of a translation is always realized through "human" as the subject of action, and the obstacles caused by cultural differences to translation are finally manifested through "human" as the subject of action. Therefore, we can not neglect the subject factors, especially the behavior of the subject, namely the original author and translator.The fundamental difference between an author and a translator is that the author is the sender of information. Kashkin, the founder of Soviet realistic translation School, once said that "the author can freely choose his own fantasy gallop, for the author the whole world is the material". Translators, on the other hand, are both information receivers and information transmitters. What they need to do is not only to understand and grasp the information sent by the works, understand and grasp the author's creation intention, ideology and emotional color, but also to convey the information sent by the author in the target language. Therefore, translators' work is severely restricted. He should not only comply with the original author's creation intention, respect the expression habits of the source language, but also comply with the norms of the target language. In this way, there will inevitably be loss in the translation process, even the phenomenon of "cutting out the nose and eyes".On the one hand, as the recipient, translators may misinterpret or fail to understand the content of the original information. On the other hand, as the subject of behavior, the translator may convey inaccurate or incomplete information of the original text. This phenomenon often appears in translation activities and is difficult to avoid.The difference in the psychological structure of national culture also has a huge impact on the subject of behavior, which leads to the differences between the author and the translator in the way of thinking, religious ideas, moral ideas and other aspects. Neither the author nor the translator can go beyond the limitation of the psychological structure of the national culture. Therefore, it can be said that every translated work has more or less infiltrated some national cultural characteristics of the target language. However, the national cultural characteristics and literary images of the original work have been more or less damaged in the translation.In addition, different cultural backgrounds lead to different social experiences of authors and translators, which also leads to different understandings and emotions of the authors and translators on society and life. Novels are often the crystallization of the author's exploration of society and life, and an artistic reflection of the author's understanding of society and life. "Authors rely on their own insight and inspiration to carry out creative labor. The logical processing of the reality of image perception is basically done before he begins to "create", and it takes a back seat in the creative process (sometimes even to some extent subconsciously).The translator must analyze and integrate at the same time (De: Aculera Because the social era outside the translator is different from the original author, his social practice and understanding are also different from that of the original author. Therefore, in translation, the subjective factors of the reader often lead to the distortion of the original text information and the destruction of the image and style of the original literature and art. This is because, as a translator who cannot have exactly the same experience as the original author, no matter how hard he tries, he cannot have exactly the same emotion and imagination as the original author and become one with the author. In this way, the artistic conception that has been visualized and concretized in the translator's mind is different from that of the original work.Therefore, the influence of cultural differences on the subject in translation is a factor that cannot be ignored.

4.Cultural differences between Chinese and Western receivers (original readers and target readers)

A literary work, a translated work, is finally recognized by the recipient, namely the reader, as a sign of its completion. At the same time, cultural differences also have a huge impact on the subject of acceptance. For a work, readers of the original text will not affect their understanding of the work due to the lack of necessary background knowledge and language ability. At the same time, the emotional changes of the characters in the book can easily arouse their resonance.The translation reader, on the other hand, is unfamiliar with the cultural background, national customs, religion, moral concepts and social living habits related to the original work. This has formed a barrier to his understanding of the works, communication and the thoughts and feelings of the characters. For this strange foreign culture, he always uses his own culture as a reference, with his own familiar cultural structure, with his own experience to understand the work, to feel the feelings of the characters. It is often the case that due to differences in moral concept, ideological understanding, mode of thinking and aesthetic taste, translation readers hold completely different views on a certain work or a certain character in the book from the original readers. The most obvious phenomenon is that the readers of the original text and the target text react differently due to the different moral concepts.For example, in Anna Karenina, written by the famous Russian writer Tolstoy, Chinese readers, while sympathizing with the tragic fate of the heroine, often "condemn Anna's lack of tolerance and her failure to fulfill her duties as a wife and mother from the perspective of ethics" (Foreign Literature Briefs). For another example, in western novels and movies, sons often call their parents or elders by their names to show the harmonious relationship between them. Western readers and viewers take this for granted, which is not allowed in Chinese communication. When talking to the elders of relatives, they must use the title, which is a polite and cultured performance. "The psychological characteristics of the traditional culture of the Han nationality are gradually formed after thousands of years of precipitation. Although various modern cultural trends of thought have been imported in the past hundred years, this kind of traditional cultural psychology has been greatly impacted. But its influence still runs deep "(language and culture).Secondly, the different way of thinking and understanding is also one of the reasons for the different responses of readers of the original text and readers of the translated text. For example, for the understanding of "friendship", in China, there has been the consciousness of "willing to do anything for a friend" since ancient times, and there is still the concept of "a friend in need is a friend indeed". The concept of friendship is mainly that friends should "respect each other".For another example, Chinese and Westerners have completely different reactions to compliments from others. Chinese people always want to be modest and polite when they hear compliments, while Westerners' customary response is to express gratitude to the compliments. If a young woman thanks someone for complimenting her on her beauty, the reaction of a traditionally-influenced Chinese would be :1) The woman is very arrogant; 2) The woman is very flirtatious. I remember that a few years ago, a famous Chinese actress declared herself the best actress in China in front of reporters and even talked about her wish to become an unmarried mother. These "amazing" words, "westernized" views, made the public opinion in an uproar.In addition, the difference in aesthetic taste caused by cultural differences is also one of the important reasons for the different psychological reactions between original readers and target readers. For example, there is a theory of beauty called "pleasure" in Western aesthetic schools. "Is the physical pleasure produced by the stimulation of the senses by an external object" (aesthetic feeling). Western writers pay great attention to the sexy beauty of the characters' appearance. The figures they produced often had the kind of three-dimensional focus on the human body that Western classical sculptors had.What Western readers appreciate, too, is the masculine beauty of the rugged, vigorous male, and the transparent beauty of the female with the strong line and the exposed feeling. And the traditional Chinese aesthetic taste, is used to appreciate the kind of face like crown jade, full of knowledge of the white scholar and charming shy, containing but not showing the beauty of the lady, until today, the white scholar full of poetry and books and dignified beauty, gentle and steady woman image is still a common sight in Chinese novels and national readers are also happy to accept the character image.In short, the influence of cultural differences on the recipient is another important cause of translation obstacles.To sum up, cultural differences create barriers to translation, but it does not mean that translation is impossible. Not only is translation possible in most cases, but through the continuous efforts and pioneering efforts of translators, many things that were considered untranslatable in the past have now become translatable, and likewise many things that are considered untranslatable in the present may well become translatable in the future. However, this transition from untranslatable to translatable requires a deep understanding of the cultural differences that cause translation barriers.Therefore, next I will analyze the cultural differences encountered in translation from the perspective of domestication and foreignization.

二.The definition of domestication and foreignization

In 1813, German classical linguist and translation theorist Schleiermacher mentioned in "on the Methods of Translation" that there are only two ways of translation: one is to let the author settle down as much as possible and guide the reader to get close to the author; The other is to keep the reader as still as possible and guide the author towards the reader." Here, Shi describes what he calls the two methods, without giving them a name. In 1995, American translation theorist Lawrence. In his book The Translator's Invisibility, Venonti dubbed the first the "foreignizing method" and the second the "domesticating method." (Venuti, 1995:20) In summary, alienation requires the translator to draw closer to the author and to convey the contents of the original text in ways corresponding to the source language used by the author; However, the law of naturalization requires the translator to get close to the target language readers and adopt the target language expression methods that the target language readers are accustomed to to convey the contents of the original text.For example:go with the stream随波逐流 (Naturalized translation) , 随溪逐流 (Foreignizing translation) draw water in sieve竹篮打水 (Naturalized translation) 以筛取水 (Foreignizing translation) Therefore, from this definition, foreignization is equivalent to literal translation and domestication is equivalent to free translation. Foreignization and domestication are summarized as two strategies of translation by the researchers of translation theory.

2.A translation of Min Culture

At the beginning of the eighth chapter of Fujian Culture, it is written: people often describe the rich and colorful Chinese folk customs with "different winds for a hundred miles and different customs for a thousand miles", but the splendid scene of Fujian folk customs can be described with "different winds for ten miles and one custom for one township". The text is neat and beautiful. The translation should pay attention to the aesthetic feeling of form and the fluency of the writing: “There is no similar winds within one hundred square miles, and there is no similar customs within one thousand square miles.”This is an old saying that is often quoted to describe the richness and colorfulness of the Chinese folk customs;but as to the customs prevalent in Fujian, people would say“there is no similar winds within one hundred square miles, and every village has one custom of its own.”From the stylistic point of view, "Min Culture" is an expository text, rich in historical materials and reasoning. Therefore, in translation, attention should be paid to the heavy logic of this style, the features of multiple concepts, terms and text hierarchy, clear language, and the use of language levels close to or similar to the original text to show the same language function. For example, in a passage from Chapter II:The ancient Yue nationality is the general name of the ethnic minorities in the south of China. The aborigines of Fujian Province are a branch of the ancient Yue nationality, called Minyue people. Although Minyue people were gradually replaced as masters in various parts of Fujian with the migration of Han people from Central Plains to Fujian, their long cultural traditions have been preserved to varying degrees. Translate into:Gu Yue is the name generally referring to the minority nationalities that inhabited in the south of China.The native inhabitants, called Min Yuenese in Fujian might have been a branch of the ancient Gu Yue which had immigrated southwards to Fujian with the Han people from the Central Plains.All over Fujian their host status had been replaced gradually, but their long historical cultural traditions have been passed down and conserved at different degree.The above text has complex structure and much information. The translation uses participles and clauses as postmodifiers to strive for compact structure. As in the translation of a statement about the Tower of the Stars in Chapter X:Built during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) and rebuilt during the reign of Emperor Tianqi of the Ming Dynasty (1621-1627), the Luoxing Tower at Mawei Port in Fuzhou is 31.5 meters high, with a combination of eaves and flat seats on all levels. The doors and Windows of the tower are all undesigned in the South, and a large number of lamp niches are kept on the tower, apparently for navigation purposes. The tower is marked as "China Tower" on world nautical charts.For example, Luoxing Pagoda, in Mawei Port of Fuzhou, was built within the years of the Northern Song Dynasty from 960 to 1127, and rebuilt in Tianqi period of the Ming Dynasty from 1621-1627.It is 31.meters in height.The eaves and their feet are connected;its body doors and windows are the works of the southern design technique.There are a lot of lamp shrines on the pagoda body, which were obviously once used in navigation.On the world navigation map, the pagoda was marked as'China Pagoda'The original text explains the architectural age, architectural features, navigation function of the lamp niche and geographical identification of Luoxing Tower. In translation, we should carefully interpret these parallel levels of information, and then divide them into several sentences and translate them into the target language. Thirdly, there are many delicate and touching literary touches in the book, describing and introducing ancient poetry, music, painting and craft works. In translation, we should also strive to use beautiful and appropriate words, and the rhetorical devices reflect the style of the original text. Such as

The depictions of line decorations go gracefully, freely with preferable force;the composition of picture is concise and terse;the painting style is simple and plain;the patterns are vivid and brisk, full of strong and simple life appeal.

Terminology in traditional culture is extremely rich, showing unique things, we should pay attention to the effective use of domestication and foreignization strategy, but also can use pinyin spelling after notes or explanations. For example, Fujian is located in a corner to the southeast, far away from the political and cultural center, so it is called the "mountain country to the southeast". Due to inconvenient transportation, countless scattered villages do not interact with each other and are not susceptible to external influences. Sometimes, "I do not know whether there is Han or Jin". This unique environment is an excellent breeding ground for the precipitation of various folk customs.

Fujian, a so-called“Southeast Mountain Kingdom”, stands in the remote southeast corner of China, and is far away from the political and cultural center.Because of the inconvenient traffic and transportation, many scattering natural villages never communicate each other, and thus are not affected by eternal situations and affairs since they sometimes simply do not there is Han Dynasty, not to say Wei or Jin Dynasty (The Han Dynasty BC206-220;Wei Dynasty 220-226 and Jin Dynasty 265-420) .

Compared with English-Chinese translation, it is difficult to translate Chinese into English, which requires a lot of practice and in-depth research. For example, it is more difficult to translate idioms, idioms, allusions, colloquial sayings, slang, allegorical sayings and numerous figures of speech. Take the idiom as an example, most of them are closely related to people's productive labor, daily life and religious belief. They have the characteristics of concise language, vivid image, incisive meaning, vivid expression and easy to catch on. So it is not easy to introduce these to foreign readers. Besides the language difference, there are many cultural barriers to overcome.Translation from Chinese to English is not a simple regression between English and Chinese. It requires the translator to have a profound knowledge of the mother tongue of Chinese, which many translators ignore. Only by conducting a solid comparison and study of the language and culture of Chinese and English, especially an in-depth study of cross-cultural communication, can the translator master the basic skills and rules of Chinese-English translation. Therefore, in college translation courses, we should first discuss the principles and techniques of traditional cultural translation from both practical and theoretical aspects, so as to make up for the deficiency in Chinese-English translation textbooks or English-Chinese translation textbooks.Of course, in a book of one hundred thousand words, all kinds of translation skills, literal translation, free translation, lexical transformation, pattern transformation and so on, must be flexibly used. In short, when you do translation work, you have to struggle with the words. You often struggle, you don't know what to do, you also feel complacent, and even admire yourself. However, you can never let go of the gold standard, that is, translation should pursue "faithfulness, expressiveness, elegance"; In modern words, the translation should strive to be "semantically consistent and functionally similar" to the original text. No matter the domestication method or the foreignization method, language and culture should be organically combined, translation strategies should be carefully selected, and the strength and proportion of cultural content should be increased to better introduce Chinese civilization to the world. In this way, China's theory and practice will surely make greater contributions to the world.It can be said that the study of each translation book and each translation theory and method is an attempt to reduce the limitation of translation caused by cultural differences and eliminate the gap between different nationalities caused by cultural differences. We believe that with the development of international exchanges and cultural exchanges, with the increase of mutual translation between different languages, and with the constant efforts and pioneering efforts of translators, the barriers to translation caused by cultural differences will become less and less, and translation will make greater contributions to the development of the culture of all nations and even the culture of mankind as a whole.

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