A Study Of The Translation Of The Culture-loaded Words And Expressions In The English Version Of Fu Sheng Liu Ji Translated By Lin Yutang

In translating Chinese classics into English, how to deal with cultural factors is verycrucial for the effective introduction of Chinese culture to the West. Therefore, how totranslate culture-loaded words and expressions in literary works has been an importantissue concerned by translators. This paper attempts to study the translation of Chineseculture-loaded words and expressions into English in the English version of Fu Sheng LiuJi 《浮生六记》) rendered by Lin Yutang, namely, Six Chapters of a Floating Life, in orderto find out a principle applicable to translating Chinese classics into English by nativeChinese translators.In order to reveal the strategies for translating culture-loaded words and expressions,this paper applies the category of them to analyzing translation methods. By means ofcontrast between the source text and the translated text, the translation methods ofculture-loaded words and expressions in Six Chapters of a Floating Life are classified andsummarized. Furthermore, in the process of assessing the translator's strategy in light ofReiss's main structure and viewpoint of translation criticism, this paper purports tosummarize his translation characteristics.In the first chapter, this paper presents a literature review of both the researches onthe translation of Chinese culture-loaded words and expressions into English, and those onSix Chapters of a Floating Life. Besides, the weaknesses involved in the researches arepointed out as follows: subjectivity and caprice, superficiality, and lack of system andcredibility. Aiming at it, this paper puts forward a new solution.In the second chapter, this paper categorizes culture-loaded words and expressionsinto two groups: cultural words and culturally loaded words/phrases. The former includewords/phrases reflecting material culture, system culture and mentality culture, while thelatter contain culturally loaded words/phrases due to different classification, differentassociation and different cultural norms. In light of the category, it exemplifies thetranslation methods of these words and expressions in Six Chapters of a Floating Lifeaccording to the following principle: semantic translation mainly for dealing withdenotative cultural information, and communicative translation for connotative culturalinformation. Furthermore, by means of classification and statistical study, the translator'sstrategy is summarized as follows: orientation to communicative translation with semantictranslation as a necessary supplement to it.In the third chapter, this paper aims at covering two aspects: on the one hand,evaluating the translator's strategy; on the other hand, summarizing his translationcharacteristics. For this purpose, Reiss's main structure and viewpoint of translationcriticism are applied to assessing the translator's strategy. The former contains text type,linguistic elements, extra-linguistic determinants and the subjective conditions oftranslators; the latter, namely, translation typology, focuses on the influence of text type ontranslation strategy. In the process of assessment, the translator's characteristics aresummarized as follows: faithful to the connotative cultural information of the ST, andregardful of intelligibility and readability of the TT.In the fourth chapter, this paper consists of the following typical moves: restating themain results, claiming the significance, assessing the present work and suggesting thefollow-up research.This paper argues that Lin Yutang's translation strategy is accurate and can beemployed as the guidance to translating Chinese classics into English by native Chinesetranslators, and that his translation characteristics are worth studying.