A Study On The Translation Of The Culture-loaded Words From The Perspective Of Cultural Translation Theory

Since globalization has become an inevitable trend,cooperation and exchange in the fields of politics,economy and culture among China and other countries are increasingly growing.In order to enhance China’s cultural strength,it is more than necessary for us to know better how to promote Chinese culture all over the world.Therefore,culture translation has become one of the most significant ways to introduce Chinese culture to the world.In the cross-culture communication environment,translation is not purely regarded as the conversion of language signs but as the transfer of culture.In other words,translation means to transmit the culture information of the original into the target language as much as possible.Chinese classics usually contain rich culture connotation,and it is propitious to culture communication between China and the West if the culture differences can be appropriately handled in Chinese-English classics translation.This thesis conducted a comparative study between the two English versions of Fu Sheng Liu Ji: Six Chapters Of a Floating Life,translated by Lin Yutang;Chapters From a Floating Life,translated by Shirley.M.Black.The author classified the culture-loaded words in Fu Sheng Liu Ji into five categories according to Nida’s classification of culture-loaded words.Based on this classification,this research explored different translation techniques and strategies adopted by the two translators in translation of various culture-loaded words and tried to find out the reasons from the perspective of Bassnett’s cultural translation theory.This research will put emphasis on the cultural transmission,in which the translator should convey the culture in the original language to the target readers and help the target readers comprehend the meanings of the author.In this way,this thesis attempts to provide conducive reference for the translation of Chinese classics.By comparing and analyzing translation strategies and techniques adopted in translation of culture-loaded words in two English versions of Fu Sheng Liu Ji,the author found that Lin Yutang preferred the foreignization strategy which made his version faithful to the original and the translator payed more attention to the source culture;while Shirley.M.Black was prone to the domestication strategy which made the cultural orientation accord with the characteristics of the target-language culture.Generally speaking,the two different strategies fulfilled different purposes of the cultural translation though the two translators deviate from their overall translation strategies in some cases.