On Translation Strategies Of Culture-Specific Concepts In Six Chapters Of A Floating Life

In translation field, the choice of translation strategies has ever been a big issue under discussion. Translation never happens in a culture vacuum;therefore, the cultural aspects in translation receive growing attention. This thesis is the study on translation strategies of culture-specific concepts in the English version Six Chapters of a Floating Life translated by Mr. Lin Yutang. Through the analysis, the author of this thesis finds that in translating culture-specific concepts, the translator generally adopts two strategies: source language culture-oriented foreignization and target language culture-oriented domestication. In order to discover which strategy is in a dominant position, the author of this thesis classifies the culture-specific concepts in Six Chapters of a Floating Life in the following areas: (1) similes;(2) modes of address;(3) units of measurement;(4) names;(5) Chinese common sayings including allusions, poems and idioms;(6) others including literature, religion and social customs etc. The result of the analysis indicates that in Six Chapters of a Floating Life, domestication method predominates over the foreignization method in translating the culture-specific concepts.In this thesis, the skopostheorie and text types in functional approaches are adopted as the theoretic basis to help analyze the translation strategies and evaluate translation effects. Skopostheorie advocates that the choice of translation strategies is determined by the purpose of translation. In Six Chapters of a Floating Life, the communicative purpose aimed at by the target text is to instruct the target readers about the story with Yun as the heroine, and Chinese way of life as well, then get them to understand the essence of Chinese philosophy. Therefore, the translator adopts a dominant domestication method to translate the culture-specific concepts in order to meet the communicative purpose of informing and instructing. On the other hand, as an autobiography which takes the form of literary sketches, Six Chapters of a Floating Life is a hybrid text with both informative function and expressive function. It provides information about the subject and meanwhile partly performs the expressive function of a piece of literature. As for the culture-specific concepts which emphasizethe expressive function, the translator adopts foreignization method to transfer the form and style of the source language. What's more, the choice of translation strategy is also conditioned by some relevant factors like the translator's attitude towards translation and target readership.It can be concluded that through the analysis of examples in Six Chapters of a Floating Life, the purpose of the translation is the prime principle which determines the dominant domestication method of culture-specific concepts and the relevant factors like text types, the translator's attitude towards translation and target readership also condition the choice of translation strategy. Therefore, both domestication and foreignization are valuable and applicable in specific situations in target language. The existence of one method cannot deny the existence of the other;they are a dialectical unity of contradictions.