A Multidimensional Perspective On Domestication In English And Chinese Translation

China has an over five thousand years long history of human civilization and athree thousand year history of translation. It was during the Han dynasty (206 BC -220 BC) that translation became a medium for the dissemination of foreignlearning. During those years, the issue of whether to translate literally or freely hasexisted since the very beginning of Chinese translation theory history, but afterthousands of years there still has not been a satisfactory answer to it Almost allthe major Chinese theorists of translation, as well as most leading scholars andwriters, have taken one side or the other, though several have argued for acompromise, advancing arguments that some accept while others do not. Similarly,concerning the Christian translation of the Old and New Testament in the West,there was the same kind of controversy: Translation committees were summonedand dismissed time and again because there was a division of opinion betweenwhether to adopt the literal or sense-for-sense approach. Nowadays, the contentionbetween literal or free translation has extended to that between domestication andforeignization, which could be seen as the English rendition of Guihua and Yihuataking linguistic and cultural influences into considerations in the process oftranslation.Many contemporary Chinese translators propose that domestication is the end to translation and foreignization should be the main strategy adopted in English and Chinese translation. Once and again they resort to political translational theory to clarify their point. However, they ignore the translation is conducted between two fundamentally different languages and culture systems instead of among Anglo-American languages. To be specific, instead of foreignizaztion, domestication is preferable and should be advocated in English and Chinese translation.This thesis is an attempt to evaluate the strategy of domestication which, as a basic...