On Approaches To Dealing With Cultural Barriers In C-E And E-C Literary Translation

This paper is a study of the approaches to dealing with cultural barriers in C/E and E/C literary translation. After reviewing the statements by both Chinese and Western scholars on this question, I arrive at the conclusion in Chapter Two that literary translation is influenced by culture, and accordingly, literary translation influences the development of certain culture. Cultural barriers are defined as the part of source language culture that the target language reader cannot comprehend.The thesis analyzes three strategies— domestication, foreignization and globalizaiton. Through analyzing some successful and unsuccessful examples of C-E and E-C literary translation, I reach the conclusion that either of the first two strategies has its own merits and weakness. Whether using domestication or foreignization, the translators should follow this principle, loyalty to the original. So in the contemporary translation field, more and more translators prefer foreignization. Then globalization is introduced, as globalization has made it possible to include less known cultures such as the Chinese culture. In the next Chapter some concrete methods and approaches are summarized. There are two main methods of dealing with source cultural features—retaining them and liberal translation. After many successful and unsuccessful translation examples being explored, four important principles of selecting these methods are summarized. Finally, two famous strategies' systems for dealing with cultural barriers in literary translation are introduced. Both of them are considered as complete and systematic although they have their own shortcomings. I hope these systems canbe helpful and guidable for literary translators when these translators handle the cultural barriers.