An Analysis Of The English Translation Of Culture-loaded Words In To Live From The Perspective Of Eco-translatology

In the 21 st century,exchanges among countries have become more and more frequent.Translation,which is a medium of mutual understanding,plays a vital role in international communication.The translation of culture-loaded words is particularly important because the words have abundant culture connotations and unique cultural expressions.As a result,the translation of culture-loaded words is a crucial bridge for people from two different cultures to understand each other.Currently the Western culture affects all aspects of younger generation’s life that includes thoughts,values,lifestyles and clothes matching.And the cognition of marriage has even been subtly impacted.Facing the “Westernization”,the output of traditional Chinese culture is correspondingly insufficient.Therefore,strengthening the translation of culture-loaded words is of great significance to spread traditional Chinese culture.The Eco-translatology regards translators as the center of translation,and it considers version from three dimensions,which are linguistic,cultural and communicative ones,then the adaptive selection is conducted.That is,translators translate source text carefully from the above three levels that are diverse aspects of the translation,and then the best version approved by target readers is acquired.Huozhe was published in 1993 and its English version To Live was published in 2003.The writer Yu Hua portrays the life change of Fugui and that of Fugui’s family in plain language.Time span in the evolution of the novel is long.Each plot consisting of time tells the social situation at that time through culture-loaded words with characteristics.Therefore,the translation of culture-loaded words in the novel is significant to carry forward the Chinese traditional culture.According to Nida’s way to classify the culture,266 culture-loaded words are found and identified in To Live and they are divided into ecological,material,social,religious and linguistic culture-loaded words.The study aims to provide a pathway and method for accurate translation of Chinese culture-loaded words,to summarize the translation strategies and translation methods of culture-loaded words,and to enrich the depth and breadth of studies of Eco-translatology.Three aspects through the theoretical framework based on the Eco-translatology are expected to analyze:(1)Strategies of Eco-translatology that are used when culture-loaded words are translated.(2)In contrast to other theories,distinctive guiding significance of Eco-translatology for the English translation of Chinese culture-loaded words.(3)Reflection in the English translation of To Live from three dimensional transformations or even multi-dimensional transformations.It is found that translator Michael Berry adopted the strategy of “free translation first,literal translation second” to ensure information communication from the communicative dimension when translating culture-loaded words.Then strategies transliteration and transliteration with interpretation were used to maximize the cultural connotation in To Live from the cultural dimension,and then the goal of highlighting important cultural information and controlling sentence length was achieved.Finally,as for the differences in expression habits between Chinese and English,he applied addition to show hidden meanings in Chinese from linguistic dimension,and adjusted logical relationships appropriately as well.Through the above treatments,target readers have a better understanding toward Chinese culture.According to the above conclusions,other translators could learn from Michael Berry when they translate similar text in the future.Eco-translatology as the theoretical framework helps analyze the adaptation and selection that translator Michael Berry did when others face culture-loaded words,and the thesis based on the theory further enriches theoretical results,and then this domestic translation theory could be boosted to develop well.Translators who apply Eco-translatology could keep the translated version and original text concordant so that the version with a high degree of similarity to the original could be obtained.