A Study On Compensation Strategies For Translation Of Chinese Culture-Loaded Words--A Case Study Of Fortress Besieged

As losses inevitably exist in inter-linguistic translation owing to various factors like languages, cultures, thinking models, etc., compensation plays a significant role in the process of translation. Compensation is consequently an effective means to make up for the loss of linguistic meaning, pragmatic function, culture information, aesthetic value of the source text. In the translation of Chinese culture-loaded words into English, compensation can serve as a reliable channel for successful transference of Chinese culture to English readers thus promoting mutual understanding and exchanges.As a scholar's novel, Fortress Besieged is abundant in culture-loaded words, which reflect Chinese culture and become one of the prominent features of the work. In 1979 Indiana University Press published its first English version which is the only complete English version till now. It reproduces the exact content and style from the original contributing to its translators'employment of various translation ways, especially their attempt to attain the original style as well as to convey the meaning.The author of this thesis attempts to give a rather detailed analysis of compensation strategies in the translation of culture-loaded words in Fortress Besieged and tries to explore the compensation strategies at the lexical level, the discourse level and the aesthetic level. For all levels, the author employs the most typical and representative examples to illustrate the individual devices in each of them and has come to conclusion as follows: First, In the English Version of Fortress Besieged, the translators employ various means to compensate the otherwise would-be-lost meaning in the translation of culture-loaded words, which proved to be a success on the whole. However, losses cannot be thoroughly eradicated and problems like under-compensation and overcompensation exist, which indicates that blank space in compensation field is left for further study on both theory construction and practice operation.Second, for the purpose of preserving the original style, the translators mainly adopt five compensation techniques:amplification, generalization, specification, omission and annotation at the lexical level; at the discourse level, the compensations are conducted by adding logical connectives and person deixis; as to compensating at the aesthetic level, diversified translation means are employed altogether according to concrete situations.Third, in dealing with compensation in translating culture-loaded words, the principle of demand and that of the same function are prior to all other principles.