On Translation Strategies From The Perspective Of Historical Task Of Literary Translation

The discussion on strategies of Domestication and Foreignization in literary translation has been a long-debated issue in Chinese translation circle. In order to explore the discussion clearly and thoroughly, some problems should be cleared up: 1) Chinese traditional strategies are not the extension from literal & free translation, although Chinese traditional strategies are carried out in the field of both linguistic and cultural dimensions and literal & free translations are only carried out on the linguistic dimension; 2) Domestication and foreignizaion on the linguistic dimension are not equal to literal and free translations for the things that are being compared. They are different: in the former, we measure the TT with the rules and grammar of the TL, while in the latter, we measure the TT with ST; 3) Chinese traditional strategies are different from Venuti's postcolonial strategies because of the different scopes the strategies can be applied to and their different aims: the former is for cultural exchange, the latter is against cultural hegemony.In order to obtain appropriate strategies in literary translation, on the one hand, although culture and language are inseparable, a distinction needs to be made between translating language content and culture element in literal translation. A target-oriented strategy - domestication, is suitable for translating language content, and a source-oriented one--foreignization, is suitable for translating culture elements.