Translating Cultural-specific Items

In the end of the Second World War, people with different nations and various culture backgrounds communicate and interact more and more frequently due to the rapid development of transportation and communicating technology. The concept "global-village" appeared in the 60s of the 20th century. Due to differences in geographical location, social system, religious belief, life style, and way of thinking, etc., people in different nations have developed their own specific cultural heritages. These culture differences hinder effective cross-cultural communication. Accordingly, the bridge of cross-cultural communication—translation is becoming more and more important. Translation of culture-specific item with cultural connotation is the difficulty and key point. This thesis is an endeavor in studying the translation of culture-specific items.In the second part—literature review, the relationship between language, culture and translation is analyzed from the perspective of cross-cultural communication: language is the carrier of culture; culture is the soil of language to develop on; translation is the bridge for the communication between two languages and different cultures. Cultural turn in translation studies highlights the important position and significance of culture in the process of translation. It involves the change of many elder views:the diversity of translation criterion; translators'subjectivity and creativity have been brought into initiative; Translation is not merely transformation of linguistic signs, but also a cultural transformation, inteipretation and representation from one culture to other cultures through the medium-language. As far as translation practice is concerned, cultural turn in translation studies makes translator strengthen their cultural awareness.San Guo Yan Yi, the first long historical classic in the history of Chinese literature, containing abundant cultural information, has a deep and long influence on Chinese culture. Its English version—Three Kingdoms translated by Moss Roberts not only convey the cultural information involved as faithfully as possible but without causing any information cramming or trouble in comprehending but also won high and much popularity in Western countries. This thesis examines, in the light of the culture classification and translation strategies proposed by Aixela, Eugene Nida, Peter Newmark, Wang Dongfeng, Qiu Maoru, the Roberts'strategies in translating the culture-specific items in San Guo Yan Yi, the results of which are epitomized herein as reference for future practice and study.