Culture-specific Words And Expressions In A Q Zheng Zhuan And Their English Translation

A Q Zheng Zhuan is a text with abundant cultural elements of China, which reflect all the cultural aspects of that period in China, the translators should convey as much information as possible without causing any information cramming or any trouble for reading. Mr. Yang Xianyi and his wife made this attempt to introduce the Chinese literature to English readers. So a close look at the culture-specific words and expressions and their translation bares practical importance and can serve as an example for the translation of Chinese literature.This article first analyses the relation between language, culture and translation from the point view of cross-cultural communication, provides some related translation studies on culture, and introduces culture-specific words and expressions as the general term. Through different views and definitions for this term of Chinese and Western scholars, three characteristics of culture-specific words and expressions are described, and two ways of classification of culture are discussed according to different scholars.Based on the five types of sub-culture proposed by Eugene Nida, and plus an additional sixth one, the English version of the culture-specific words and expressions in The True Story of Ah Q is discussed and analyzed. Through a review of translation strategies most often used by scholars in translating culture-specific words and expressions, the article analyzes the frequency of these strategies used in the English version and suggests the relevant translation strategies for each kind of situation in translating these culture elements to provide some reference for future practices and studies.