On Translation Strategies Of Cultural Images In Classic Chinese Poetry

Since 1980s many scholars both at home and abroad have begun to study the phenomenon of translation from the perspective of culture. Snell-Hornby proposes that translation scholars abandon their "scientific" attitude in the past and incorporate the culture into translation theory studies. Bassnett and Lefevere argue that translation studies have undertaken a historic "Cultural Turn". The significance of "Cultural Turn" lies in the fact that it enables translation scholars to realize that translation studies should be conducted in a broader cultural context and to examine the position of culture in translation and translation's contribution to cultural transmission and prosperity as well as social development.From a cultural perspective, translation is a cross-cultural communica- tion and its mission is to promote cultural diversity through proper transmis- sion of source language culture in a way that is acceptable for target language culture. However, the encounter of cultures inevitably leads to clashes. Then what can we do to promote cultural diversity? The author of this thesis proposes that the principle of "harmony combined with diversity" from traditional Chinese culture provides at the same time great enlightenment for facilitating cross-cultural communication and an opportunity to fulfill translation's mission to promote cultural diversity.Translators often resort to two translation strategies: domestication and foreignization. Domestication refers to the target-language-culture-oriented translation strategy in which expressions acceptable in the target language culture is exploited in order to make the translated texts intelligible and suitable for the target text readers. Foreignization is source-language-culture- oriented translation, which strives to preserve as much as possible the original flavor in order to retain the foreignness of the source language culture. In fact, some translations are domestication-oriented hybrid texts while others are foreignization-oriented hybrid texts. What they differ is the degree of hybridity. So far, many scholars have initiated the research in hybridity translation and achieved some remarkable accomplishments. Meanwhile the hybridity can give us some revelation to maintain the diversity of culture and to resist the cultural hegemony.The thesis begins with the introduction of translation studies through the perspective of cultural translation theory. By discussing the connotations and relationship between the two opposite strategies, namely, domestication and foreignization, the thesis further explores the fusion of the two: the hybridization strategy. Then, the thesis makes a detailed elaboration of hybridization in order to prove that hybridization is a best choice in the translation of cultural images in classic Chinese poetry. Last but no the least, the thesis focuses on the problem which include the various methods concerning hybridization strategy in the imagist translation practice. The conclusion points out that all these researches are only tentative, leaving much room for improvement. It can be hoped that besides the author's studies more insights concerning hybridization translation more researches can be carried out to locate the most effective way of translation and boost our communication with the world.