Culture And Cultural Interpretation In Translation

TransIation is an important device in cross-cuItural communication Viewed from theangle of communication, it is i11 fact a process in which the translator transmits intbrmationfrom the source language to the target language reader. But "1anguage can't exist separatelyfrom culture." It is the carrier of its culture and in turn the culture exerts its influence on andinsti1ls it into the language. TherefOre, any ethnic group's language contains deep culturalconnotations. Without any knowledge of it or being unab1e to interpret it appropriately,satisfactory translations cannot be accomplished.Culture in the world has similarities as well as differences. The universal humancognition of the world makes cross-cultural communication possible and provides the base forinterpreting and translating of other cultures. Each ethnic group has deposited its own culturecharacteristics through long historica1 deveIopment. Reflected in languages, their specialliving surroundings, religious beliefS, traditional customs, ways of Iife, value systems,conception of beauty, etc., sent fOrth a unique and enchanting spell of national culture. Thus,each language has its own cultural background, and its cultura1 meaning closely re1ates to thesocial and cultural backgrounds where it exists DitYerences in culture often lead to themisunderstanding of the source language or to the wrong transformation in translation. That iswhy it is quite necessary fOr the translator to deal with the cu1ture factors seriously. Thepresent dissertation is intended to explore culture and cultural interpretation in transIationfrom three aspects.First of all, a knowledge of culture comparison is of vital importance. So far as theChinese culture and Western culture are concerned, rooted in two greatly different culturalsoils, a great number of culture-loaded words and terms in each 1anguage reflect the greatdisparity between the two cultures in question. To a translatof, an appropriate understandingof the language can be hardly achieved if he/she possesses no corresponding comparativeknowledge of the two cultures "The culture comparison main1y involves dimensions ofculture similarities and culture disparities." (i$ffE, l998) So, presented in the first part ofthis dissertation wil1 be a colorful wor1d of comparative study of Chinese and Western cultureon both their simiIarities and differences mainly on the words and terms level. Though adetailed comparison is attempted to make, yet it is only a small part due to the limited spaceof the present dissertation. It is of great use fOr understanding those cultural deposits inlanguage, and mainly fOr the purpose of drawing translators' due attention to the cuIturalfactors embodied in linguistic messages and paving the way for the appropriate culturalinterpretation.Secondly as to the ways of handling the culturaI factors in translation, many concretemethods have been accumulated through practice in the translation circles. But above all,translation is an activity of inter-language transtbrmation. Liu Miqing, the famous translationtheorist in our country, put tbrth "the fOur basic modes of inter-language transfOrmation" inhis Co nten1Portlry Translt,tion Tleory (1999), i.e corresponding transformation,parral1eling transformation, substitution transformation and conflicting transfOrmation. As Mr.Liu pointed out, they are the most universal rules and most fundamental means in the inter-language communication. Various translation methods are the concrete applications to them. Therefore, we make a tentative application of these four modes in question to the cultural factors mainly on words and terms level in the reciprocal translation of Chinese and English language. Any concrete methods can be employed flexibly under such four modes. All serves the efficient communication purpose of translation.Besides, culture context plays a key role in cultural interpretation and cross-cultural translation. Culture context,...