Font Size: a A A

On The Indispensable Role Of Domestication In Translation

Posted on:2005-09-23Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:C WangFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360122491680Subject:English Language and Literature
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
There exists a long-lasting controversy in translation field, that is, the debate between the strategy of domestication and the strategy of foreignization. Domestication strategy refers to the target-language-culture-oriented translation in which expressions acceptable in the target language culture are exploited in order to make the translated texts intelligible and suitable for the target text readers. Foreignization strategy is the source-language-culture-oriented translation which strives to preserve as much as possible the original flavor in order to retain the exotic flavor of the source language culture. Their respective representatives are Eugene A. Nida and Venuti.Eugene A. Nida advocates functional equivalence and lays stress on reader's response between the original and the translated version. In his mind, domestication is an indispensable means to avoid linguistic and cultural conflict so as to achieve effective intercultural communication in translation. Besides, he emphasizes on the communicative function of translation. In his translation theory Nida puts forward "dynamic equivalence", which is defined as "the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language." (Nida, 1964) However, Venuti advocates "resistance translation" (Venuti, 1995) in order to develop a new theory and practice of translation to signify the linguistic cultural differences of the foreign text. Both ramifications have their own faithful followers all over the world. Now more and more people believe that with the process of globalization, culture-oriented translation should be regarded as the trend of translation. Thus the application of foreignization should be strongly recommended. Liu Yingkai ( ) even stunned us with his astonishing paper "Domestication: A Wrong Track in Translation"(1987, (2):10). He listed variousdefects and forms of domestication in the article and emphasized the necessity to establish the leading role of foreignization in translation. However, the author of this thesis holds that the overemphasis of foreignization is obviously one-sided and unscientific. And if we allow the tendency to go rampant, it will cause an unpredictable loss in translation studies.The author of this thesis aims to shed lights on the point that although the translator's chief task is to achieve cultural transmission today, he should not neglectthe invaluable translation strategy--domestication. Strictly speaking, there aredifferent forms of domestication at various levels, such as, lexis, syntax, discourse, stylistics, rhetoric and so on. By analyzing them one by one, the author of this thesis strives to make one point clear, that is, the strategies of foreignization of cultural content and domestication of language forms are two complementary tools, and the lack of either will disillusion our hope of attaining cultural transmission.In Chapter One, an introduction is given to make clear the concept of domestication and foreignization, and to introduce the representative advocate of domestication, Eugene A. Nida, his theories, the theoretical basis, relative notions of domestication and their influence in translation studies and translation practice in China and in the western countries.Chapter Two chiefly expatiates on various levels of domestication. The adoption of domestication strategy at the lexical level can include three aspects, phonetics, lexical forms, and semantic meanings. The three elements virtually constitute the basis of any language. What's more, each language has its unique system of phonetics, lexical forms and semantic meanings. As a result, in translation the translator unavoidably should resort to the target language in these aspects so as to accomplish the task of information communication and cultural transmission.The adoption of domestication strategy at the syntactic level consists of sentences in linear sequence, multilevel complex sentences, and sentences in passive...
Keywords/Search Tags:domestication, foreignization, cultural transmission, functional equivalence
PDF Full Text Request
Related items