On The Treatment Of Cultural Elements In Literary Translation: From A Perspective Of Reception Theory

Literary translation is a most important part of translation. Chinese modern literary translation is the necessary outcome of cultural exchange between modern Chinese and western cultures, meanwhile, it is the major carrier of cultural exchange between modern Chinese and western cultures. Cultural discrepancies do exist in different nations, and we define such discrepancies as cultural elements, which complicate the translation. Literary translation, as an important medium of cultural exchange activities, simple domestication or substitution can no longer meet its demand. The basic difference between literary translation and other translations is that the purpose of literary translation is to convey the source-text culture, promote the cultural exchange and enrich the target-text language and so on. When translating the cultural elements, we should try to keep the foreign flavor, seeking the commonness and reserving the foreignness. Therefore, literary translation is not only a transcoding between different languages, but also an exchange and replenishment.The present thesis discusses the operation of cultural elements in literary translation from the perspective of reception theory. Summarizing the definitions of translation and culture and analyzing the relationship between them and the significance of cultural exchange, the paper tries to seek a systematic understanding of the operation of cultural elements. In many former translation theories, the author-centered theory and the text-centered theory occupied a definitely dominant position and did not consider the readers' reception, nor even did they consider that translators should choose various translation strategies according to the readers' reception during the translating process. In the 1960s, with the birth of reception theory based on people's reception, whose theoretical basis is phenomenology and hermeneutics, a new research method has beenfound, which is an important revolution on methodology.A reader has formed a certain world view, social experience and aesthetic tendency and his consciousness is not empty before he reads a literary work or when he is reading a literary work, which constitutes the reader's horizon of expectation. The oriented horizon and the creative horizon determine the value and merits of domestication and foreignization respectively. Excessive domestication or foreignization is not in accordance with the reader's reception ability and unpractical.This paper mainly comprises six parts.The introduction gives an account of the current situation of translation, the significance of this topic and the purpose of the study.Chapter One offers a thorough account of the definition and nature of culture and translation put forward by famous scholars both at home and abroad, what is more, it discusses cultural variety, cultural assimilation and the nature of translation and points out that literary translation is a kind of cultural translation.Chapter Two provides the significance of cultural exchange and the cultural function of translation. The importance of culture in translation studies is expounded in this part.Chapter Three offers an introduction to reception theory, the relationship between the theory and translation and the application of reception theory in translation studies from the two aspects: the reader's role and status and fusion of horizon; the author proposes an important principle for translation, which is "cultural facsimile".Chapter Four discusses the translation practice under the guidance of reception theory. Starting from the regular strategies for the operation of cultural elements, this part analyzes several examples in literary translation in detail from three aspects: the reader's role and status, fusion of horizon and reader' reception and cultural exchange.The conclusion points out: according to the reception theory, the...