On The Factors Of Domestication And Foreignization In Translation From The Perspective Of Historical Environment

Translation is representation in one language of what is written or said in another language. It is not only a linguistic transference, but also an intercultural communication. The universals and disparities of the culture make the communication possible with people from various cultures. At the same time they give rise to quite a few translation problems, especially a contradiction between foreignization and domestication.This paper sets out to study two strategies on cultural translation: one of them is domestication, the other is foreignization. Domestication refers to target-language-culture-oriented translation in which expressions acceptable in target language culture are exploited in order to make the translated tests intelligible and suitable for the target text readers. Foreignization is source-language-culture-oriented translation which strives to preserve as much as possible the original flavor in order to retain the foreignness of the source language culture.A representative of domestication, Nida advocates functional equivalence and lays stress on reader's response. He emphasizes equivalent reader's response between the original and translated version. He regarded domestication as dispensable means to avoid linguistic and cultural conflict and to make effective intercultural communication achieved by translation. However, a representative of foreignization, Venuti advocates "against translation" in order to develop a theory and practice of translation to signify the linguistic and cultural differences of the foreign text.Domestication and foreignization as opposite translation strategies have long been the focus of discussion in China's translation circles. Before the 1980s, China's translation was characterized by the domestication strategy. After that, translators and theorists began to reconsider the relationship between these two translation...