Constructing Cultural Identities In Post-colonial Context From The Perspective Of Translation

With the cultural turn of translation studies, non-linguistic disciplines have been involved in translation studies. As the core concept of cultural studies, cultural identities has achieved much attention. Cultural identities, with dual meanings of identities and identification, is a collective concept. This thesis takes religious identity, social identity and aesthetic identity as three parameters to study the channel of translation in constructing cultural identities.Followed by the"cultural turn", the post-colonial turn rises as another transition in translation studies in the 1980s, which provides theoretical foundation for deconstructing western hegemonic discourse. Of the post-colonial translation theories the discussions on cultural identities provides feasible strategies of constructing cultural identities.Much has been done on studies of version from post-colonial perspective and cultural identities from the perspective of translation strategies. However, little has been done on studies of specific version from the perspective of cultural identities. This thesis argues that cultural identities and translation is closely interrelated, and translation is an effective channel to construct cultural identities. Chinese classical literary works, as the essence of cultural text, is the most important expression of cultural identities, the translation of which can be effective channel to construct cultural identities.The thesis first summarizes the definition of cultural identities, its formation and significance. Then it establishes the connection between cultural identities and translation by showing the relationship between cultural identities and language as well as translation and text. It goes on establishing logical connection between the construction of cultural identities and translation of classical literary works. Value as the core component of cultural identities is the very essence of culture, so the translation of classical literary works is effective channel to construct cultural identities. The thesis cites the two versions of Hong Lou Meng (A Dream of Red Mansions) as cases to prove the argument. Finally the thesis summarizes effective strategies to construct cultural identities in post-colonial context on a trial basis.