| The relative advantages and disadvantages of the translation strategies of domestication and foreignization in literary translation have been a long-debated issue in the translation circles in china and the west. This debate has had far-reaching impact on the construction of translation theories and deepening of translation practice. The focus of the debate has shifted from the issue of literal-vs.-free translation under the linguistic framework to the issue of domestication-vs.-foreignization in a wider socio-cultural context, and from stressing a comparison of vocabularies and sentence structures of the two languages concerned to emphasizing the influence of the connotation of language and culture over the choice of translation strategies.The key discrepancy in the debate lies in the fact that each side stresses the merits of one strategy to the complete negation of the other on basis of a rigid dichotomy between domestication and foreignization. In the 21st century, some scholars, affected by mushrooming new theories, adopt a dialectic viewpoint toward this pair, regarding them as a complementary rather than mutually exclusive. In China, the focus of research has shifted from which strategy is better, to which strategy is more proper in literary translation. However, to take a stand in the latter debate may still risk being one-sides.This thesis, through analyzing the close relation between language and culture and the impact of this relation between over translation, seeks to prove that it is possible to view domestication and foreignization as strategies operating at two different levels.At the linguistic level domestication is preferable to foreignization, while at the cultural level, both foreignization and domestication can be used in the translation of words and phrases or sentences with cultural uniqueness. But as for literary translation, it is better to adopt foreignization on the ground that the task of literary translation is to convey the foreignness of other cultures. This viewpoint is proved by a comparative study of two versions of Gone with the Wind. Therefore, we may state that necessary domestication at the linguistic level and necessary foreignization at the cultural level form the organic whole of these two strategies, which mar be termed a "hybridized" strategy. This approach is an attempt to settle the debate over the issue of domestication vs. foreignization.This thesis includes three chapters, in addition to a preface and a conclusion.Chapter One involves the basic issues of domestication and foreignization. Firstly, the concepts of domestication and foreignization are introduced, and then two basic levels at which these strategies operate are investigated, namely, the linguistic level and the cultural level.Chapter Two susveys the debate over the issue of domestication vs. foreignization in china and the west. The viewpoints of representive figures of these two strategies are analyzed and their rationales dicussed. Then based on the analysis, the strategy of "hybridization" is proposed, namely, to domesticate linguistic elements and to foreignize cultural elements; and then starting from this principle of translation, hybridization is proved by numerous examples.Chapter three focuses on a comparative study of two versions of Gone with the Wind, that is, a comparative analysis of the two versions at both the linguistic level and the cultural level, thus the rationality of "hybridization" is demonstrated, a strategy which integrates the advantages of both domestication and foreignizaiton. |
