Translation Strategies Manipulated By The Dynamic Cultural Correlation

It has been acknowledged that the central culture dominates the choice of translation strategy, and the adoption of a certain translation method in turn reflects the correlative status of two cultures involved. However, the cultural correlation keeps changing, which is hard to define in practice. The thesis endeavors to figure out as many factors as possible manipulating the dynamical cultural correlation of the source language and the target language in view of domestic and overseas theories on the selection of translation strategy.In order to accomplish the task, a survey on the choice of translation strategy throughout Chinese history is worth conducting so as to figure out what factors dominate the correlation of cultures and how they determine the translating operation in view of the related theories of western and domestic linguists.Since Chinese modern language of the day was originated from baihua (vernacular Chinese) in the "May 4th" Period, the real connotation of baihua translation, namely the translation strategy adopted in baihua translation was highlighted in the thesis. After having been confirmed the role of those cultural factors: power and patronage, ideology and poetics, text-type, universes of discourse proposed by Lefevere and the others like translation purpose, readership and degree of outside cultural exchanges, their impacts on the dynamic meanings of baihua translation were expounded.The October Revolution in Russia served as a turning point leading to the change of cultural relations between China and foreign countries. The former central position of the western culture was substituted by the past condemned, neglected and marginalized Chinese civilian culture, which resulted in the change of pro rata of contrastive translation strategies in the baihua translation—from zhiyi (literal translation) and yihua (foreignization) to yiyi (free translation) and guihua (domestication).The paper made a tentative exploration on the Chinese translation history especially the baihua translation in the "May 4th" Period as a case study to prove that cultural relations were in a constant movement, not static and fixed but dynamic. On the other hand, translation in turn interacts with culture, which brings about diversified orientations of translation strategy.