On Translation Of Idioms From Cultural Perspective

Modern translation studies about cultural concepts and a wealth of cultural flavor in idioms arouse my interest in exploring translation of idioms from cultural perspective. Chapter One first makes a systematic exposition of the close relationships among language, culture, translation and idioms and then examines the sources of Chinese and English idioms and their characteristics to emphasize the importance of discussing translation of idioms from cultural perspective. Chapter Two outlines the criteria of translation, makes a theoretical analysis of translation equivalence and based upon some translators' empirical evidence and translation theories at home and abroad, proposes six methods used to translate Chinese and English idioms (i.e. literal translation, liberal translation, correspondence-cum-loan translation, image-shift translation, literal translation plus annotation and literal-cum-liberal translation) and meanwhile analyzes their cultural connotations. In view of the cultural characteristics and national flavours of English and Chinese idioms, Chapter Three illustrates contradictions between English and Chinese idioms to indicate some of the inequality between them and discusses how to achieve faithfulness and expressiveness of target language and culture to the source language and culture in translating some culture-specific idioms such as xiehouyu, allusions and proverbs, and warns some problems a translator should be careful of in translating idioms. The last part recapitulates the main points, emphasizing the importance of the issue as well as the necessity of applying principles with flexibility in idiom translation.