Differences Between Chinese And Western Cultures And Translation Strategies

The earlier studies of translation have experienced two major stages: the comparative study of the source text and the target text and that of the source language and the target language. Ever since the "cultural turn" in the 1990s, however, a consensus has gradually been reached within the translation community that translation concerns more than the transfer between languages; it also involves the transfer between cultures. Empirically, a large number of translation works have also revealed that compared with differences between languages, differences between cultures tend to cause even more perplexities for translators. On the basis of these thoughts and facts, the present author intends this thesis as an attempt to address the problems posed by cultural differences in translation between Chinese and English.This thesis is mainly composed of two parts: a detailed and systematic study of the differences between Chinese and Western cultures that are reflected in the languages, which is aimed at shedding light on the problems that translators are likely to face in translation between Chinese and English, and a discussion and illustration of translation strategies directed at the very factor of culture, which is intended to be a problem-solving section. In the first part, the cultural aspects of religion, the way of life, social conventions, mode of thought and values are elaborated on. In the second part, combined with the analysis of the factors that are prone to influence the choice of translation strategies by the translator, aided with a host of examples, twelve strategies that are frequently resorted to and are of practical worth are discussed at full length.At the end of the thesis, the author proceeds to relate the preceding discussion to the current argument about "loyalty" in translation, and classifies the twelve strategies into two approaches to culture, namely domestication and foreignization. By discussing and analyzing the nature of these two approaches both theoretically and practically, the author concludes that the strategies of domestication and foreignization do not stand in opposition to each other; they are complementary in essence. Based on this viewpoint and considering the increasingly frequent exchanges between cultures, it is predicted in the end that these two categories of translation strategies will coexist in the future, with the foreignizing ones being used more frequently.