Analysis On The English Version Of Lu Dingji By John Minford From The Perspective Of Intercultural Communication

The Deer and the Cauldron (Lu Dingji in Chinese Pinyin) is one of themasterpieces of Louis Cha (Jinyong), who is one of the world’s most widely readnovelists and one of the most popular novelists in China. The Deer and the Cauldron,written between1969and1972, is Louis Cha’s last Martial Arts novel and also is themost mischievous and in some way the least typical work of his. Louis Cha’swonderful craftsmanship of language is embodied adequately in it. This great noveldemonstrates us readers a China-featured and colorful martial arts world. People inthis world or people in River and Lake, come from different backgrounds and havedifferent jargons and codes of behavior. All these typically China-featured elementsinevitably make it difficult to translate for the translator and to fully comprehend andaccept for the target readers. The first volume of John Minford’s English version ofthe novel was published in1997by the Oxford University Press and was praised bymany English scholars. Louis Cha also showed his satisfaction to the first volume.The translator himself suggests that Chinese Kung fu culture is too profound for theWesterners to understand all. He just wanted the foreign readers to learn about it andenjoy it no matter how little they could catch.But some questions, such as whether the English version can convey theoriginal spirit, whether the novel can be understood rightly and to what extent thenovel can be accepted have cause a heated discussion between translators andscholars.Intercultural communication, as a phenomenon is really universal and it takesplace everywhere. It refers to the communication between different culturalbackgrounds. Translation is the bridge of intercultural communication. What’s more, a translation should be studied from the view of intercultural communication.This thesis is an attempt to find out answers to those questions raised above bya close study of the first volume of the English version from the perspective ofintercultural communication specifically from language intercultural communicationand cultural intercultural communication by the method of random sampling. Finallythis thesis draws a conclusion of the translatability of the language in the novel,accessibility and acceptability of this Kung fu novel among Western readers.The translator Minford and other scholars at home and abroad pay greatattention to cultural conflict between Chinese and English and the translatability oflanguage, accessibility and acceptability of the English readers. Since it is the culturalgap that causes these problems and difficulties, the version can and should beanalyzed from the angle of intercultural communication.