Foreignization: A Major Approach To Translating Chinese-specific Words Into English

Translational activities involve the translation of words. To discuss translation problems at word level is the prerequisite of a successful translation. Culture is an everlasting intriguing question. Culture has created splendid words in human vocabulary. Cultural differences are mostly manifest at word level. Chinese culture is a part of world culture with its charming and mysterious traits. Learning and translating Chinese culture should be the concern of Chinese society, which never lose research values. Through vicissitudes of the dynasties and accumulation of civilization, Chinese lexical words possess abundant cultural deposits and strong national features, clearly reflecting various aspects of cultural entities and embodying the origin and spirit of Chinese culture. Culture-specific words are unique to a cultural community, which cannot find any equivalents in other cultural communities.How to translate culture-specific words and what kind of translation strategies can be adopted require deliberate consideration. Domestication and foreignization are the two main translation strategies. To domesticate or to foreignize: that is a question. In the history of translation studies, domestication seems to hold a dominant role in translation strategies. The present-day world witnesses frequent communication across nations and enhanced cultural exchanges. The 21st century is sure to be the century with the mainstream of cultural communication. It is an overwhelming trend to conduct cultural dialogues between cultures on an equal footing. Ethnocentrism and a sense of culture superiority should be avoided in translation; what translation means is to respect source texts and foreignized features. In recent years, more and more scholars advocate a foreignizing translation and the target readers who prefer foreignizing translation are on the rise. Foreignization in translation in this context becomes the focus of this paper.Based on the translation theories learned during postgraduate study, the author with what she has learned tries to pick up some typical schools of translation studies, analyze them and conclude that foreignization should be a major and feasible approach...