Foreignization: The Maintenance Of Cultural Differences

In an age when globalization and multiculturalism undergo full-fledged development, dominant cultures inevitably creep into others and bring about cultural globalization or acculturation, in which some subordinate cultures are running the risk of being assimilated. On the other hand, these cultures keep striving for their own development and try to carry on dialogue with the dominant on an equal plane. Hence arises the call for maintenance of cultural identity especially in the case of subordinate culture. In the academia of translation, this trend finds its best substantiation in the strategy of foreignization or more exactly the creative maintenance of ST cultural differences in translation. By disclosing the illusion of translation equivalence and casting doubts on some advocacy of seeking equivalents in TL cultures, this thesis challenges the workability of the strategy of domestication in idiom translation. After a critical analysis of Venuti's notion of foreignization, this thesis argues that far from deliberately breaking target conventions by retaining foreignness of the original, the strategy of foreignization should creatively maintain ST cultural differences in the target text, thus making the translation an organic whole with a flavor of foreignness and without breaking the target conventions. With the use of theories of cultural studies, critical discourse analysis and reader-response criticism, and case studies of C-E idiom translation, this thesis further endeavors to explore the necessity and possibility of this translation practice, with a view to shedding useful light on the translation issue, and more importantly promoting mutual understanding among different cultures and enriching each culture through the introduction of Others' unique and splendid features.