A Comparative Study Of The Two English Versions Of Lao Can You Ji

Based on translational theories related with domestication and foreignization, formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence, communicative translation and semantic translation, and skopos theory, this paper is a comparative study of the two most popular English versions of Lao Can You Ji by the Yangs (Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang) and Harold Shadick from both cultural and linguistic perspectives by way of textual analysis and exemplification. Cultural studies of this paper focus on appellations, in which case the Yangs translated mostly through communicative approaches like substitution, omission and general words to ensure the fluency and intelligibility of the target text while Shadick mainly resorted to semantic translation by means of metaphrase plus notes. Linguistically, the Yangs translated through the approaches of both domestication and foreignization the words and phrases, sentences and inserted components. In order to preserve the Chinese syntactical structures and wording, Shadick consistently chose to foreignize the original text. However, inappropriate rendering do exist in his rendering. For terms that have corresponding words in the target language, it is proposed that domestication be dominant strategy; for terms that have no equivalents in English but are easy to explain, literal translation or expressions with short attributives are suggested so as to make the translated text smooth; for terms that are unique in Chinese and hard to explain, transliteration with notes are recommended. Paraphrasing is a better choice for misleading words.