A Cross-Cultural Study On Translating The Lexis Of The Chinese Folk Customs

IntroductionLanguage and culture are closely related and interdependent. On the one hand, language is the most important organic component of culture. Every language is, to a certain degree, peculiar to a language community. It embodies the thinking pattern and way of life of a certain culture. On the other hand, language is influenced and shaped by culture. It is so deeply ingrained in culture that the meanings of language must be determined by their cultural contexts. "No language can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture; and no culture can exist which does not have at its center, the structure of natural language. " (Lotman, 1978:211-32)Translation is a bilingual and bicultural communicative activity. Chinese and English belong to different language families. Each has some characteristics different from those of the other, which results in linguistic obstacles in translation. However, what makes translation notoriously problematic and fraught with difficulties is conflicts of diverse cultures. One of such difficulties lies in translating culture-loaded words and expressions. Once the translation problems related to cultures are properly solved, translation can promote cultural exchanges, which highlight culture distinctiveness.Lexicon is the most active and the most sensitive components of a language. This paper ventures a study on translating the culture-loaded lexis of Chinese folk customs in the cross-cultural perspective.Chapter OneThis chapter analyzes the importance of translating the culture-loaded lexis of Chinese folk customs in the age of globalization.The culture of Chinese folk customs originates from the cultural exploration and transmission of millions of Chinese people. It is an important part of the traditional Chinese culture and the necessary part of the world culture. The national and the international background nowadays make it possible to disseminate the Chinese folk customs to the world. A case in point is the China-France Culture Year.However, taking an overall view of translation studies in China, we can find that almost all the studies are done on the translation from foreign languages to Chinese. As a result, introduction of Western cultures through translation has always been maintaining strong momentum. Traditional Chinese culture has never been translated systematically, let alone the Chinese folk customs.In an age of globalization, the influence of Anglo-American culture is overwhelming. So it is of strategic importance for Chinese translators to strive to preserve the root and uniqueness of Chinese culture and disseminate it to the world through translation. Only in this way can we preserve our cultural identity and Chineseness in the age of globalization, so that we can make our contribution to the enrichment of world culture.Chapter TwoIn its general sense, the Chinese folk customs are composed of the folk customs of psychology, of behavior and of language. Words and expressions of the first type include taboos, people' s popular belief in nature, worship for totems and worship for ancestors. Words and expressions of the second type come from all manner of ceremonies and the observations of various kinds of festivals. Myths, legends, riddles,proverbs and ballads are sources of the last type of words and expressions.The lexis of Chinese folk customs is characterized by its strong national flavor because of a long and complicated history. Thus it is very difficult to find the equivalents in the target language in translation. Such difficulties are, first of all, brought about by lexical gap. Lexical gap occurs because what is culturally unique to one nation is a cultural blank to another. The author gives abundant examples to show that this phenomenon appears in all the three types of folk customs.The second difficulty in translation is semantic lacuna. It has two situations. One is that the seemingly equivalents such as "false friends" have the same denotation but no corresponding connotation, 年糕,汤圆,枣生贵子 can well illustrate th...