From Domestication To Foreignization

Because of the special characteristics of literary translation, domestication and foreignization, as two strategies of translation, have always been the focus of discussion in China's translation circle. From the translation of Buddhist Scripture in ancient times to the modern translation of western theories, the discussion has never been stopped. Before the 1980s, China's literary translation was characterized by the domination of domestication strategy. After that, translators and theorists began to reconsider the relationship between the two translation strategies. Recently, a new debate on domestication and foreignization has begun.For a long time, the author and the text were regarded as sacred and inviolable, and the reader was neglected and little conscious attention was paid to the readers'function in determining the choice of translation strategies during the process of translation. In the 1960s, on the basis of hermeneutics and phenomenology, reception aesthetics was established, and its points of view provided translation studies with entirely new theoretical angles and approaches. It is of great significance to translation studies.Just from the point of view of reception aesthetics and employing concepts such as horizon of expectations, aesthetic distance, the fusion of horizons etc. this paper analyzes the debate on foreignization and domestication, and points out that the choice of translation strategies is a very complicated process in which three main aspects should be taken into our consideration, that is, the historical background, the motivation of translation and the reader reception with the reader reception playing a leading role. Then the author takes Lin Shu's and Lu Xun's translation as examples and points out that domestication and foreignization are the two different choices of the translators in different background based on the reception ability of different readers. With the constant developing of economic globalization and the frequent cultural exchanges in modern times, we should not take it for granted that foreignization will be the dominant strategy, nor should we underestimate the role of domestication and take eclectic attitude towards them. Instead, we should see that, it's a gradual and dynamic process, with the readers'horizon of expectation becoming higher and higher, the general trend of translation strategies will be a dynamic movement from domestication to foreignization, and all of our translation activities should conform to this trend.