Tentative Study On The Writing And Chinese Translation Of Moment In Peking-A Cultural Perspective

Cultural translation has been receiving more and more attention from translation theorists. Due to the existing cultural differences among speaking communities, translators would definitely meet obstacles in translating cultural messages, which requires a choice of translation strategies—domestication and foreignization. In the translation history, there has long been a dispute between these two strategies. Also there are various translation theories guiding the selection of such strategies. Skopos theory, an important functionalist translation theory, holds that the prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose of the overall translation action.Moment in Peking, originally written in English by Lin Yutang, is a popular novel well-known for its introduction of the Chinese culture to western readers. When writing this book, Lin Yutang translated lots of Chinese culture-loaded expressions into English. Within the framework of skopos theory and by examining the selected examples, this thesis gives a detailed analysis of the translation strategies adopted by Lin in translating Chinese terms of address, greetings, customs and philosophy, and finally reaches a conclusion that Lin mainly uses the foreignization strategy with the purpose of introducing Chinese culture to western readers.On the other hand, the English'Chinese translation of this novel involves the process of back translation. According to skopos theory and by analyzing specific examples taken from"京华烟云", a Chinese version translated by Zhang Zhenyu, this thesis argues that the translator takes proper methods to achieve the purpose of retelling the story to Chinese readers who are familiar with Chinese culture. These methods include: hundred-percent accuracy, omission and necessary changes.This thesis aims to enrich the study of translation strategies in cultural translation and bring new insights into the study of bilingual and bicultural writers and their works.