Strategies For Translating Culture-Specific Items In Chinese-English Translation

Culture is a country and nation’s soul.The Chinese people are endeavoring to develop China into a socialist country with strong culture and grow the country’s cultural soft power and the appeal of Chinese culture.Tourism texts are an effective means to display and promote a country’s culture.To better tell China’s stories and make its voice heard,the translation of Chinese tourism texts is an indispensable part.In Chinese-English translation of tourism texts,CSI is an essential issue that the translator has to face.In 1996,Javier Franco Aixelá introduced the concept of "culture-specific item"(CSI).By analyzing three Spanish translations of The Maltese Falcon,an American detective novel,Aixelá identified two categories of translation strategies,including eleven kinds.The author modifies and supplements some of Aixela’s CSI translation strategies and applies them to the Chinese-English translation practice of City Discovery:Chaozhou,which produces good results.In general,with some adjustment and improvement,Aixelá’s theory can be well applied to the translation of CSI.Firstly,due to the informative nature of tourism texts,the translator can consider"graphical representation",which refers to providing the target readers with more direct information in the form of images.Secondly,when the translator adopts transliteration or linguistic translation,they often need to combine extratextual gloss and intratextual gloss to make it easier for the target readers comprehend the meaning of the original text.Thirdly,as to how to choose from limited universalization,absolute universalization and naturalization,the author believes that it is directly related to the knowledge reserve and cultural awareness of the translator.When conditions allow,the author suggests that the translator give priority to naturalization.Finally,compared with rhetorical Chinese tourism texts,English tourism texts are more concise and simple in style.Therefore,the author believes that deletion and attenuation deserve to be taken seriously.