On Cultural Back-translation From The Perspective Of Imagology

Cultural back-translation refers to the translation of a special type of trans-national works which depict Culture B in Language A and the translation process is to translate these works back into Language B and bring them back to Culture B.The constructed nature of imagology reveals that image is constructed in specific context and the construction and communication of image is closely interconnected with the context of history,society and culture.Therefore the essence of cultural back-translation is to restore and construct Culture B’s image depicted in Language A to make them correspond with the expected image in Culture B.This book aims to tell the historical and cultural evolution of the Grand Canal and the narrative is put in the entire background of China’s politics,economy,culture and history.What are difficulties in cultural back-translation of this kind and how could them be solved? How could cultural back-translation contribute to image construction in Chinese culture? What kind of image has been constructed through the translation of this book? To answer these questions,the author applies imagological approach in cultural back-translation and proposes two translation strategies,together with several translation techniques,to be used depending on whether the image constructed in Language A could meet the expectation in Culture B.Complete cultural backtranslation aims to faithfully restore the cultural image of Culture B described in Language A and constructive cultural back-translation serves to re-narrate and reconstruct image in Culture B.Hopefully,this thesis could shed light on studies in cultural back-translation from the perspective of imagology.