Being Faithful To The Source Language Culture

This study is an investigation concerned with the cultural translation of Chinese classic Hong Lou Meng in which the correct transmission of the cultural information is very important due to more and more communications between nations. Since cultural information can not be created or changed, the translator should be faithful to the source language culture in the creative translation. If the source language culture is tampered into the target one which the readers are willing to accept, the translation may not play the role of cultural exchange from the view of receptional aesthetics. We are to find out those cultural elements that were properly or improperly translated, i.e. the gains and losses in cultural translation and to illustrate their appropriateness or inappropriateness with translation strategies. For the improper translation, we will provide more ideal versions; for the petty cultural elements, we will give the reasons why we may use the translation technique of omission in cultural translation.This study aims to investigate the reasons that cause gains and losses of cultural translation in the English versions of Hong Lou Meng, to analyze the translation strategies of the cultural loaded words, to identify and classify internal and external factors for the loss of cultural translation, and to explore remedial measures for the loss of the cultural information in the translation. The study will provide a reference for the retranslation of Hong Lou Meng and other classics in the future, which aims to help target readers getting to know Chinese culture better and more accurately, thus further promoting Sino-foreign cultural exchanges.This dissertation addresses five primary research questions:a. What should the translator be faithful to when doing literary translation?b. What strategies and methods did the translators use in cultural translation of Hong Lou Meng?c. What social impact have the two versions aroused?d. What are the reasons that cause the differences in cultural factors translation, that cause the translated cultural information deviating from that of the source language culture and that cause the losses of cultural information in the original?e. How do the translators compensate the cultural information in order to be faithful to the culture in the original and to make a faithful introduction of the source language culture to the target readers?This study adopts cross-disciplinary approaches of translation study, cultural study, and comparative literature. We offer a systematic, empirical account of studying the popularity of the famous Chinese classic Hong Lou Meng in today's Anglophone world and make sure that the translations have achieved the function of cultural communication. We randomly sample as many cultural loaded words as possible from the texts, analyzing and comparing the differences and similarities of the translated cultural loaded words by the two well-known translators and the faithfulness to the original text.Findings of this study showed that cultural faithfulness to the original text is first and foremost thing in literary translation to achieve the function of cultural communication. The translator should use fitting strategies and translation methods to convert the cultural information in the original into that in the target text. The versions can never be over-domesticated or over-foreignized. Still, part of literary translation is related to politics. The translator should get to know the political, historical and cultural background of the original text and the author and the readers and critics should get to know that of the translator. The translator should also avoid over-domestication, over-foreignization, zero translation and mistranslation and use zero compensation, compensation in the version, compensation by annotations and compensation by transformation to compensate the cultural default in specific translating process.