Study On The Translation Strategies Of CSIs In The Second Series Of Amazing Tales

Currently,as human is in the age of mass communications and of multi-media experiences,economic and cultural communication among different countries and nationalities has become increasingly intensive and frequent.Translation,as a bridge between two languages,plays a pivotal role in communication.However,translation not only involves linguistic translation but also the transference of cultural elements.Therefore,the research of translating cultural elements accurately has been greatly valuable.Specifically,translating culture-specific items(CSIs),as an immediate reflection of culture,has been significant.Erkepaianjingqi(the Second Series of Amazing Tales)is written by Ling Mengchu,and his vernacular stories provide a kaleidoscopic portrayal of the worldly life in Ming dynasty,which is the significant part of Chinese Classics.The complete translated version by Li Ziliang,a part of Library of Chinese Classics,has increasingly become popular in western world due to its completeness and faithfulness while maintaining the flavor of Chinese culture.The present thesis conducts a comprehensive study on translation strategies of Chinese CSIs with confirmation and classifications of CSIs in the Second Series of Amazing Tales.Scholars at home and abroad have proposed varieties of constructive translation strategies in rendering culture-specific items,however,those strategies are far from reaching consensus.Unlike previous researches mainly focusing on domestication and foreignization in general,this thesis aims to analyze translation phenomenon objectively and put its major concern on translation strategies.And both quantitative and qualitative approaches are adopted in the research.This paper will describe the actual translation strategies adopted by the translator in translating culture-specific items based on careful statistics and analysis,summarize the laws of translation,and probe into the constraining factors underlying translation strategies.In this thesis,culture-specific items are categorized into 11 kinds,namely,names,places,periods,Chinese addressing,Chinese official system,Chinese idioms and allusions,Chinese sayings and similes,Chinese education,Chinese religion,Chinese ci poems and others under the guideline of Nida’s categorization of culture.As is well-known,the taxonomy of translation strategies put forward by the Spanish translationscholar Aixela in terms of different degrees of intercultural manipulation has surpassed other kinds of categories in translation strategies for its completeness and systematic order.Through appropriate modifications,Aixela’s taxonomy can be applied as a guiding framework to the Chinese-English translation of culture-specific items.Therefore,under the framework of translation strategies put forward by Aixela with certain modifications,this thesis makes an attempt to analyze the translation strategies adopted by Li Ziliang in his Chinese-English rendering of CSIs in the Second Series of Amazing Tales including conservative strategies(transliteration,linguistic translation,extratextual gloss and intratextual gloss)and substitutive strategies(absolute universalization,naturalization and deletion).It can be concluded that linguistic translation is the most frequently used strategy by Li Ziliang in translating CSIs,which is followed by transliteration and extratextual gloss,on the basis of maintaining the flavor of Chinese culture and disseminating Chinese culture.Seven kinds of translation strategies are adopted in translating the eleven categories of CSIs in the Second Series of Amazing Tales,which have been mainly conditioned by linguistic diversity,cultural diversity and translator’s purpose.To generalize,conservation is adopted by the translator as the dominant translation strategy with substitution being the complementary strategy in translating CSIs in the Second Series of Amazing Tales for preserving and disseminating the source culture to a maximal extent and making the translation of Chinese Classics an effective medium to disseminate Chinese culture.