On The Translation Of Chinese Culture-Loaded Words In Fortress Besieged

With the development of cross-cultural communication and globalization, it is increasingly important to introduce traditional Chinese culture through translation into other countries, for this will not only facilitate mutual understanding between China and the rest of the world, but will improve the political, economic and cultural positions of China in the world. Words are the most important components in a language, and many of its words are embedded with rich cultural connotations of the language community. Therefore, culturally loaded words play a very important role in cross-cultural communication, and to study how to deal with culture-loaded words in Chinese-English translation is a very effective way to help TL readers learn Chinese culture through the translation.With this aim in view, the thesis tries to do a tentative research on the translation into English of Chinese culture-loaded words in a novel by Mr. Ch'ien Chung-shu, Fortress Besieged. Since its first publication by Shanghai Chenguang Press in 1947, Fortress Besieged has received great popularity among the readers, literary critics and translators. It has been translated into many languages, such as English, Russian, French, Japanese, German, Korean and Spanish, etc. The English version of the great piece got published in 1979, with the joint efforts of two translators, Jeanne Kelly and Nathan K. Mao. Ch'ien Chung-shu employs a large number of Chinese culture-loaded words in the novel. Accordingly, the translators try their best to reflect the original flavor by keeping the cultural features of these words in the English version.In this paper, the author aims at locating the Chinese culture-loaded words in Fortress Besieged and analyzes their translation in the English version. According to the analysis of the Chinese culture-loaded words in the first four chapters of the novel, the author finds that foreignization is employed by the translators as the main translation strategy and domestication as the complementary strategy, so that the treatment of Chinese culture-loaded words has contributed a lot to the whole literary aippreciation and high admiration by the TL readers. In order to confirm the feasibility of the translation strategy of Chinese culture-loaded words in Fortress Besieged, the author makes a case study by seeking responses to the English version from TL readers, with a questionnaire which is provided in the appendix part.The subjects in the study are twenty Australians with English as their native language and having some knowledge about Chinese culture. The results of the investigation show that all the subjects have great interest in learning Chinese culture; all of them think learning Chinese culture-loaded words is helpful to know the uniqueness of Chinese culture; different TL readers have different preferences for the five kinds of culture: ecological culture, material culture, social culture, religious culture and linguistic culture; half of the subjects prefer foreignization strategy with 20% of the subjects preferring the combination of foreignization and domestication for the translation of Chinese culture-loaded words in Fortress Besieged ; most subjects prefer literal translation and think all the other translation methods, such as transliteration, free translation, substitution and amplification are necessary when literal translation is not feasible.According to the research on the translation of Chinese culture-loaded words in Fortress Besieged, the author hopes that new light could be shed on the translation of cultural factors in other literary works so that the cultural gaps between Chinese people and others can be bridged.