| The mutual infiltration, convergence and communication of language and culture among different nations have been constantly deepening with the developments of society, economics, politics, science and technology, etc. Translation, in modern society, plays so important a role in cultural transmission among and language development of different nations. There is a cultural turn in translation studies, which requires translation should mirror the foreignness of the source text in the target one.It is known that language is the carrier of culture and it reflects culture. Lexicon, as the most active carrier of cultural information, most sensitively and directly, reflect the unique features of a certain nation. As far as Chinese and English are concerned, culture differences are vast and obvious which manifest themselves as non-correspondence in word meanings at lexical level. Therefore, translation should be regarded as a transfer both linguistic and cultural. On the basis of the precedents, by adopting contrastive approach, this thesis attempts to analyze the non-correspondence in word meanings due to differences of English and Chinese cultures with emphasis on the examination of translating strategies dealing with cultural elements and application of concrete methods. The author hopes this study will be of great help in cross-cultural communication and translation.This thesis is divided into four chapters:Chapter I discloses the concepts of culture and language and discusses the relationship between them. Culture is universally acknowledged to be closely connected with language, which constitutes an essential part of the former. Language is the medium of culture, through which the history of human civilization and social progress are recorded. Language contributes to the communication, transmission, continuation and evolution of culture. While, at the same time, language is shaped by culture and it reflects culture. The intimate relation between language and culture determines cultural features are always manifested in language and understanding of one requires understanding of the other.In Chapter II, an analysis is made of cultural differences and non-correspondence in meanings at lexical level. Every language possesses four cardinal elements, i.e., phonetic system, lexical system or vocabulary, grammatical structure and discourse. Of the four, the lexical system constitutes the building blocks supporting the huge languagestructure and at which level cultural distinctions between languages are more prominent and widespread. As far as the Chinese and English cultures are concerned, differences are vast although similarities exist because the Chinese and English cultures are geographically and temporally distant from each other. These differences mainly manifest themselves as the non-correspondence in word designative and associative meanings, thus posing great problems for translation.Chapter III discusses the relation between culture and translation because, first, the inequivalent words between Chinese and English are mainly caused by the differences between two cultures, and second, cultural factors can by no mean be neglected in translating practice, which is a part of information conveyed by the source text. This chapter also introduces the cultural translation studies prevailing in the translation academia both of home and abroad, and the comparison of the discordances with regard to translation strategies dealing with cultural elements, i.e., foreignization and domestication is made. The author holds that both strategies are of significance in guiding the translation while the cultural elements are involved. But in translating activities, choice should be made between the two.Chapter IV analyzes the possibilities for Chinese translators to apply the foreignization strategy to the translation of the words with non-correspondent meanings due to cultural differences, and concrete and practical methods of such strategy are categorized and illustrated with plenty of examples. Foreignizati...
|
PDF Full Text Request