On Translation Of Cultural Expressions In Fortress Besieged

Wei Cheng has been acclaimed as a masterpiece of modern Chinese literature forits astute sarcasm and skillful language. The novel has been translated into manylanguages and enjoys great influences. This dissertation attempts to analyze intotranslation of cultural-unique and ethnically-specific words and expressions based onthe English translation version of Wei Cheng by Nathan Mao and Jeanne Kelly.The study in the dissertation is mainly conducted from perspectives of readers·reception in the light of Skopos theory and foreignization strategy in the light ofintercultural communication. While some scholars hold that translation of suchexpressions should minimize the cultural information and elements to make it easieraccepted by target readers, more and more current studies have indicated that tomaintain as much cultural information as possible can serve to enhance thetransmission of Chinese culture and promote an equal communication betweendifferent cultures. The writer has found that translators of Wei Cheng had generallyadopted a hybridity· strategy to tackle the problem, balancing the two contrastingperspectives, to achieve the target of cultural transmission with also consideration ofthe reception of target readers.As to the structure of the dissertation, in the first chapter, the writer will present atheoretical framework for the analysis based upon previous studies in the related areas;in the second chapter, cultural expressions and their translation will be furtherexplored with definition and classification of cultural expressions and a semanticsexplanation of the cause of multi-faceted meanings of cultural expressions. In thefinal chapter, a summary of translation methods of cultural expressions will beconducted.