A Study On The English Translation Of The Culture-loaded Words And Expressions In 《�'林外史》

With the rapid development of economy and cultural exchanges in the world, cultural transference has attracted intensifying attention in the translation field. Culture is closely related to language and language is the carrier of culture. How to translate culture-loaded words and expressions in literary works has been an important issue concerned by translators. This thesis reflects the study of its author on the translation of Chinese culture-loaded words and expressions into English in the English version of (The Scholars) translated by Yang Xianyi and his wife.About translating Chinese culture-loaded words and expressions, many scholars have conducted a lot of researches, but no agreement has been reached between the two strategies: domestication and transplantation. In the viewpoint of the author of the present thesis, whether the strategies used by the translator are optimum is determined by multiple factors, namely, the purpose of translation, the identical and different aspects between source culture and target culture, translator's attitude towards the two cultures involved in translation and translator's judgment about TL readers' cultural background.Translating is translating the meaning of the source text (ST) into the target text (TT). Meaning refers to cultural information. Culture-loaded words and expressions contain specific cultural information, and cultural information includes denotative cultural information and connotative cultural information. Not a few scholars focus then* study on translating denotative cultural information. In fact, connotative cultural information contained in culture-loaded words and expressions which is closely related to specific contexts and source culture, is much more difficult to translate. Therefore, the study on translating culture-loaded words and expressions in literary works should include the study on the translation of both denotative and connotative cultural information.In order to reveal the strategies for translating culture-loaded words and expressions, the author of this thesis has categorized culture-loaded words andexpresses in The Scholars into eight groups. Then he has conducted statistical method to summarize the translation strategies and applied translation theories to analyzing these strategies and their effects.Translators hold different viewpoints about the treatment of classical Chinese culture in translation. The author of the present thesis, through studying the translation of culture-loaded words and expressions in The Scholars by statistical method and theoretical analysis, has found that its translators adopt literal translation to deal with the major part of culture-loaded words and expressions without giving much explanation. This method of literal translation conveys faithfully both the denotative and connotative cultural information to English readers. To translate culture-loaded words and expressions with partial-correspondence in meaning between source language (SL) and target language (TL), they adopt literal translation with proper explanation or translate them literally and offer notes at the end of the book. As to words and expressions with non-correspondent meaning relationship in the TL, they adopt paraphrase to realize the transference of connotative cultural information with the denotative cultural information omitted. As to minor words and expressions with non-correspondent meaning relationship in the TL, they use partial omission or full omission to guarantee the transference of the main cultural information. They attach great importance to cultural conflicts and TL readers' acceptability as well. When there is cultural conflicting between SL and TL cultures, they use TL images to take the place of SL images to transfer connotative cultural information to TL readers. On the whole, as far as the translation of culture-loaded words and expressions are concerned, the translators faithfully keep the images of the ST and preserve the core of Chinese culture and effectively convey the essence of Chinese cultu...