Cultural Transplantation Strategy Of Translation Of Chinese Food Culture

With the rapid development of our economy and increasing international exchanges, more and more foreign guests want to obtain a deeper understanding about China's glorious culture, especially food culture. Food culture represents different culinary art of different countries. It is one of the ways to show the historic and cultural features of a nation, including material culture and spiritual culture. Chinese food culture occupies an important position in China's culture and is world-famous for its long history and profoundness. Thus, translators should shoulder responsibility dutifully to export Chinese food culture abroad.Relevance theory can explain and guide translation activities. Under the framework of relevance theory, translation is a special two-way ostensive-inferential communication course, which is a process of inference and searching for relevance. The ultimate goal of translation is to make translated text produce sufficient contextual effects among target readers, that is target readers find the best relevance between the target text and cognitive environment. In translation practice, translator should correctly evaluate target readers'cognitive context and choose proper strategies based on it.The flaws of the present research are analyzed and pointed out. The characteristics of Chinese food culture translation and the differences between China food culture and Western food culture are listed. In accord to relevance theory, the thesis further discusses translation of Chinese food culture from the perspective of cultural transplantation. Translation methods vary according to translation purpose, text types and context. Effective translation methods, such as literal translation, liberal translation are put forward to produce cultural context and adequate contextual effects in order to achieve optimal relevance between the target text and the target reader.The author holds that application of relevance theory in translation of Chinese food culture from the perspective of cultural transplantation is of great significance. The final conclusion is that: Essentially, translation achieves language and culture communication. The goal of food culture translation is embodying faithfulness, emphasizing culture, and considering readers'acceptability under the premise of retaining exotic flavor. Though relevance theory is significant in guiding food culture translation, it also needs to be further improved.