Cultural Factors That Affect The Translation Strategy Of Foreignization & Domestication

Foreignization and domestication, as two major translation strategies, have long been the focus of .the debate in the translation circle. The advocates of the former strongly state that the translated texts should retain the features of original language and culture to convey the exotic flavor, while those of the latter believe that the target text should be rendered into a language that is as natural and smooth as the target language. In this thesis, the author would like to deal with these two translation stratagies in the perspective of culture. By introducing the concept of cultural polysystem put forward by Even-Zohar and the theory of "patronage" and "professionals" in translation by Andre Lefevere, the thesis aims to ananlyze how the cultural factors manipulate the employment of domestication and foreignization. The author then, by taking what is happening in the translation circle in China as an example, gives a relatively detailed description of the choice of the translation strategy in different cultural contexts. With theseanalyses made, the thesis concludes that the employment of translation strategy varies in accordance with the status of the target culture and that the translation strategies, foreignization and domestication, will exist side by side and will be both alternatively employed in translating practices.