Cultural Connotations Of Idioms And Their Translation

The significance of cultural translation, breaking away from the restrictions ofmerely translating linguistic form, has increasingly been noticed among some scholarsin translating world since the beginning of the 1990s in that it aims to explore into thefield of dynamic interpretation of some relevant issues concerning translation studiesin cross-cultural contexts. As a result, idioms, as a form of linguistic manifestation ofcultural elements, have drawn wide attention among scholars interested in culturalfactors complicating the translating process in this decade. As far as idiom translationis concerned, a dynamic interpretation of cultural issues behind purely linguisticforms is the most essential step to any successful communicative rendition.Many studies of idiom translation have been made previously, but most of themfocus either on the interpretation of idioms at linguistic level or on the debate aboutthe orientation of idiom translation at the theoretical level, when it comes to theinfluence of cultural factors on coherent interpretation of idioms in translation,works are rare to be found. Therefore, this thesis aims to account for the influence ofcultural specific phenomenon on idiom translation and strives to find most suitableways to compensate for absence of relevant cultural background knowledge shared bySL readers and TL readers in interpreting idioms.Three types of idioms are distinguished from the angle of bi-cultural relations:corresponding idioms, semi-corresponding idioms and non-corresponding idioms.