Foreignization Or Domestication?

With China’s reform and opening up, external publicity is receivingever-increasing concern. So is publicity literature translation, in whichfield many studies have been conducted and inspiring fruits yielded.However, the previous researches on Chinese-English translation ofpublicity materials are largely focused on the linguistic aspects oftranslation and specific translation skills. Studies of the cultural factorsand translation strategy under cultural influence leave much to be desired.The present paper is an attempt to give an in-depth analysis of thetranslation strategy adopted in C-E publicity literature translation, and toexplore the deep-rooted cultural reasons for the situation. Due to thedistinctive features and functions of publicity materials, the appropriatestrategy for C-E publicity literature translation is domestication ratherthan foreignization. Approached from a broader perspective, the choice ofdomestication results mainly from cultural disparity that widely exists ininternational communication, for the C-E translation of publicitymaterials is under the strong influence of the cultural position of ournation, regretfully a dissatisfactory one at present. Venuti’s foreignizationtheory is applied in the research. That the cultural position of a nation and/or of the translated literature in the receiving culture will exert stronginfluence on the translation strategy, as they believe, is well proved inC-E translation of publicity materials. In addition to translation strategy,cultural disparity also affects the translator’s choice of texts and thereception of the translated publicity materials. To better introduce Chinato the outside world, we should prescribe appropriate strategy to achievedesired quality of publicity literature translation and publicity effect. Atthe same time, we should always keep our predicament and responsibilityin mind, and strive to preserve and transmit Chinese culture in C-Epublicity literature translation on condition that comprehensibility of thetranslated text is achieved.