On Back Translation Of Chinese Culture-Specific Items

A Chinese-American writer,rooted in Chinese culture,introduces the cultural phenomena with Chinese characteristics to the readers of the target language country after processing in his works,which promotes the cultural exchanges.Therefore,when translating these writings into Chinese,it is necessary to restore the Chinese culture,which is regarded as back translation.Because there is no Chinese version as the original text in the back translation process,this translation belongs to “rootless back translation” or “textless back translation”.In 1940 s,for the fondness of Su Tungpo,Lin Yutang created The Gay Genius: The Life and Times of Su Tungpo,which endeavored to introduce the greatest poet and spread traditional Chinese culture to the western world.There are two Chinese versions at present,which were translated by Zhang Zhenyu and Song Biyun respectively.Translators must try their best to restore the cultural information when translating these writings full of Chinese colors into Chinese.Therefore,it is regarded as cultural back translation.Based on the theory of Prof.Wang Hongyin's “textless back translation” and the theory of culture-specific items,this thesis takes a study of the Chinese culture-specific items in Lin Yutang's The Gay Genius and finds that he mainly adopted the translation strategy of foreignization,supplemented by domestication.At the same time,this thesis classifies the Chinese culture-specific items in the two Chinese versions,analyzes them comparatively and does further research on the subjective and objective factors causing mistranslation of cultural items,i.e.,the complex process of back translation,the huge workload,the back translatability of Lin's originals,and the translators' qualities.The author hopes that this study can provide reference for the translation the Chinese culture-specific items in overseas works.