On The Translating Strategies Against Cultural Difference

As the informative age approaches, the work of translation is becoming more and more important. The quality of a version has a great effect on the communication and dissemination of the source message. In the process of translation, translators often come across the problem of cultural difference between two languages. Such difference, to an extent, will influence the quality of a version as well as the reader's comprehension if it is not handled properly. It is quite important to deal with cultural difference smartly.Owing to cultural difference in some respects, translators often encounter some cultural factors in translating. The author focuses her researches on such cultural factors as the difference in religions, appellations, idioms, and cultural vacuum (cultural default and absence of cultural concepts, and so on). These factors undoubtedly bring more difficulties to translators. A translator, only based on the acquisition of the difference between source culture and target culture and on the mastery of the techniques dealing with cultural difference, is able to produce a qualified version. And only when appropriate translating strategy is applied could the cultural communication between nations become possible.Moreover, cultural presupposition merits the special notice of translators because it may substantially and systematically affect their comprehension and interpretation of what is told in source texts unconsciously. Translators are supposed to avoid the interference of the negative respects on the part ofcultural presuppositions and misreading. From this point of view, translators should pay much attention to what approaches should be employed in conveying the cultural message to readers of another language. The author examines the major elements in the four sub-systems of culture and argues that translators should be very cautious in the course of decoding the source message.Consequently, it is demanded that appropriate translating strategies be employed in dealing with cultural difference. The translating approaches in terms of cultural difference rely much on the pragmatic function of the source text. Pragmatics refers to what makes some uses of language more appropriate than others in certain situation. In order to achieve equivalent translation, translators should also attach great importance to the equivalence of pragmatic function between the source text and target text. Such functional equivalence can help translators know much better about how translation should be actually performed, examine the methods that have been used throughout the history of translation practice and explore how to fit texts for the receiving cultures. In this thesis, the author probes into mainly the strategies of alienation, domesticating, and cultural mediation as well as in what way and what spheres they should be used.Furthermore, translating techniques are the microscopic approaches in translating. The thesis lists the translating techniques such as literal translation, literal translation plus interpreting words, literal translation with paraphrasing, word-to-word translation surplus notes, free translation and borrowing. These techniques can play different roles according to different source texts and different situations. Through the techniques, translatingstrategies, namely the macroscopic translating approaches, could be applied.Although some cultural difference could be handled through proper strategies and techniques, there still exists untransalatability of language and of culture. It is because of the differentiation between languages and cultures that something in source text cannot be transferred into the target text. Nevertheless, even if untranslatability brings the loss of literary grace, translators should try as best as they could to retain the communicative function by reducing the loss mentioned above. In view of untranslatability, further explorations are required in the process of translation so as to find more solutions effective dealing with cultural difference.In all, neither should trans...