A Study Of Translation Strategies In Red Sorghum From The Perspective Of Cultural Translation

Language, culture and translation are closely related to each other. A successful translation demands the translator not only a good command of language but also high cultural literacy. In 1990, Susan Bassnett and Andrew Lefevere put forward the "cultural turn". Since then the cultural engagements in translation are further noticed:the process of translation is not only one of linguistic transformation, but also one of cultural transfer.Honggaoliang Jiazu is the masterpiece of Mo Yan, winner of Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012 while its English version is finished by Howard Goldblatt, the most authoritative and popular translator in the western world. In the work there are many words and expressions specific to Chinese culture, which have much difference from those of the English-speaking countries. Thus the translators inevitably would be faced with the cultural differences.To achieve the cultural transfer in the translation, the translator unavoidably needs to use translation strategies. As domestication and foreignization are different in the attitudes towards the processing mode of the source text, people always have had controversies on the two translation strategies for a long time.United with the translator’s translation theories, this dissertation explores the translator’s specific adoption of the two translation strategies in dealing with material, institutional and mental cultural elements in Red Sorghum and analyses the causes of the translator’s adoption of translation strategies in Red Sorghum.Through certain document researches, case studies and data analyses, it is concluded that:Firstly, both domestication and foreignization are employed in Red Sorghum, by the translator; Secondly, though the two strategies being supplemental and coexistent to each other, domestication tends to be more frequently used than foreignization in Red Sorghum. Thirdly, the translator’s adoption of translation strategies was influenced by the existence of differences of language, culture and ideology and translator’s views on translation together.