The Dissemination And Influence Of Cultural Translation Theories In China

Whether in China or in the West, scholars have made great contributions to the studyof cultural translation. Before the1980s, the Western translation theories basicallyhad done researches on the text-only aspect but rarely involved themselves in otherfactors except the text. Since the1980s, the text-only translation researches have notbeen able to keep abreast with the times. However, the researches on the factors thataccept the text-only have been gradually popular. Those kinds of researches led to thecreation of a new translation school—the cultural school.Culture school emphasizes the influence of cultural factors on the translating and thesignificance of translation in cultural construction. It argues that the fundamental unitof translation is culture, not words, sentences or discourse; faithfulness based onvocabulary equivalence or discourse equivalence is nonexistent. The purpose oftranslation, in their opinion, is to make translation has the same function in the TLculture with that of the SL in the SL culture. The significance and effect oftranslation is stressed.This paper summarized the cultural school translation theories in western countries and reviewed the developing history of cultural translation theories in the last threedecades in China. It discussed the research condition and developing direction of ourcultural translation theories, which tried to show the dissemination and influence ofcultural school translation theories in China.