Foreignization Or Domestication?

The binary opposition model is a common approach to describing translation phenomena. With the development of translation studies, the limitations and defects of the model have gradually shown themselves. This is the same case with foreignization and domestication, two basic translation strategies, which are also one of the heatedly debated topics at present.The terms foreignization and domestication are first proposed by Venuti. In favor of forergnization, but against domestication, Venuti views the two strategies at the level of politics, culture, and poetics, and puts them in hostile irreconcilable opposition. Both in China and in the west, Venuti's radical attitude is challenged. Many translation scholars try to find out new perspectives to redefine the relation between foreignization and domestication. These efforts to some extent reconcile the contradiction between two strategies, but often function inefficiently in solving the actual problems arising in the translation process. This is essentially due to the fact that, confined to the binary opposition model, most discussions are prescriptive rather than descriptive, and are concerned with a certain aspect of translation, but overlook others.In an attempt to deconstruct the binary opposition model of foreignization and domestication, this paper advocates the use of the notion "skopos". The translation skopos means the purpose of the target text, decided by the initiator of the translational action, and swayed by the translator. Skopos is a top-ranking rule determining any translational process. Therefore, which strategy is adopted in translation must be compatible with the purpose the initiator or translator intends to fulfill. The author of this thesis finds in her study that the purpose of the translated text decides the translation strategies essentially, but not exclusively. As a matter of fact, translation is constrained not only by the skopos and target culture, but also by the source culture, for translation produces a text that occupies a position or a slot in the target culture, as well as a target-language representation of a pre-existing source-language text belonging toanother culture. Taking a middle ground between rules and idiosyncmsies,norms can be described as the society's way of regulating behavior by saying what is accepted, disapproved or totally forbidden.The present study holds that though translational norms are instable, changing with the social culture, the skopos as rule does not change, i.e., the translator always works consciously or unconsciously with respect to a certain purpose. In the light of the previous discussions, this paper makes the following hypothesis related to translation strategies: foreignization or domestication is first and foremost determined by the skopos of a particular translation task; the degree of foreignization or domestication is constrained by various translational norms, and balanced by the translator by taking into account skopos and norms. This hypothesis is tested in the descriptive study of the two Chinese versions of the French Lieutenant's Woman.The thesis first surveys the sociocultural context in which the translation takes place. Within almost the same sociocultural context, the translation strategies adopted in the two versions of the French Lieutenant's Woman are surprisingly different. So far as form and linguistic elements are concerned, the 1985 version may be roughly regarded as a case of domestication, and the 1986 version, foreignization. What must be stressed is that foreignization and domestication are referred to here in a relative sense. As to the individual version, neither foreignization nor domestication is an exclusive strateggs instead, they are often mingled, which is clarified in the respective study of the two versions at the cultural linguistic level.Foreignization and domestication are closely linked to each other in the translational process. The views that take little notice of the purposes and norms of translation, and that put the two strate...