Translator's Attitude And Translation Strategies

The debate over the two concepts of domestication and foreignization has been one of the focuses of translation studies ever since. Eugene Nida leads the domesticating school, expressing his orientation of domestication in his famous translating theory "dynamic equivalence", which was later improved by "functional equivalence". From the perspective of target readers' reception, Nida proposed fluent translation, intending it to sound more like an original than a translation. By contrast, Venuti, the first to connect domestication and foreignization with translation, is regarded as the representative of foreignizing school. Taking the theory of deconstruction as the theoretical basis, Venuti advocated "resistancy" translation from the point of view of cultural colonialism, calling on translators to preserve the original linguistic and cultural flavours in the translation from other languages to English, rather than adapt them to the linguistic and cultural norms of English, with the ultimate purpose of countering cultural hegemony adopted by the dominant Anglo-American cultures.In terms of the focus and purpose of study, this thesis is different from the traditional ones in most of which language is the subject. In traditional translation studies, the original is often taken as the reference to analyze the rationality of the use of translation strategies through studying "faithfulness" of the version to the original. The purpose is to set standards which translators are supposed to adhere to in selecting translation strategies. This approach is unilateral, because it has neglected the influence of translator's cultural background on translation. Nowadays, translation researchers have begun to give their attention to extra-textual factors that may influence translation activities. Under these circumstances, from the perspective of cultural influence on translator's attitude, this thesis makes an analysis of the dynamic change of the selection of translation strategies in accordance with time, place and translator.Any translation is conducted against a certain cultural background. The translator in this background attains certain recognition of what follows: translator's cultural position, translator's political purpose of translation and translator's perception of target readers. These respects constitute the primary factors that influence translator's attitude and determine translator's selection of translation strategies. From the...