On The Translation Of Culture-Loaded Words And Expressions In The Scholars

With the establishment of globalization and accultration, there are twoobvious tendencies in the translation studies. Firstly, translation theories aredeeply branded with communicative theory. Secondly, scholars attach moreimportance to cultural exchange than the transmission of language. Thecombination of the two tendencies gives us new insight into the nature oftranslation. That is to say, translation is not only linguistic activity but alsoactivity of cultural transplantation and exchange. It deals with not only twodifferent languages, but also two different cultures. Cultural transference hasattracted the intensifying attention of the translation circles. Culture isclosely related to language and language is the carrier of culture. With therapid development of translation study and cultural study, cultural translationhas become the focus for the scholars both at home and abroad, especiallyduring the process of translation of classical Chinese works. How totranslate culture-loaded words and expressions in literary works has becomean important issue which is paid close attention to by translators. This thesisreflects the study of its author on the translation of Chinese culture-loadedwords and expressions into English in the English version of The Scholars(《儒林外史》)translated by Yang Xianyi and his wife.About translating Chinese culture-loaded words and expressions, many scholars have conducted a lot of researches, but no agreement has beenreached between the two strategies: alienation and adaptation. In theviewpoint of the author of the present thesis, whether the strategies used bythe translator are optimum is determined by multiple factors, namely,understanding ability of the translator, receiving capacity of the readershipand tolerating capacity of the target culture.Translating is transferring the meaning of the source text (ST) into thetarget text(TT). Meaning refers to cultural information. Culture-loadedwords and expressions contain specific cultural information, and culturalinformation includes denotative meaning and connotative meaning. A fewscholars just focus their study on translating the denotative meaning. In fact,the connotative meaning contained in culture-loaded words and expressionswhich are closely related to specific contexts and source culture, is muchmore difficult to translate. Therefore, the study on translating culture-loadedwords and expressions in literary works should include the study on thetranslation of both denotative and connotative cultural information.In order to expound the strategies for translating culture-loaded wordsand expressions, the author of this thesis has categorized culture-loadedwords and expressions in The Scholars into six groups. Then the author hasconducted statistical method to summarize the translation strategies and hasapplied translation theories to analyzing these strategies and their effects.Translators hold different viewpoints about the handling of classical Chinese culture in translation. The author of the present thesis, through thestudy of culture-loaded words and expressions in The Scholars by statisticalmethod and theoretical analysis has found that its translators adopt literaltranslation to deal with the major part of culture-loaded words andexpressions without giving much explanation. This method of literaltranslation conveys faithfully both the denotative meaning and connotativemeaning to the English readers. To translate culture-loaded words andexpressions with partial-correspondence in meaning between the sourcelanguage(SL) and the target language(TL), they adopt literal translation withproper explanation or translate them literally and offer footnotes at the endof the book. As to words and expressions with non-correspondence inmeaning (lexical gaps) in the TL, they adopt paraphrase to realize thetransference of connotative meaning with the denotative meaning omitted.As to minor words and expressions with non-correspondence in meaning inthe TL, they adopt partial omission or full omission to guarantee thetransference of the major cultural information. Besides that, the translatorshave noticed cultural conflicts caused by great cultural difference and haveused the TL images to take the place of the SL images to transferconnotative meaning to the TL readers. And what is more, it is appropriate toavoid the loss of cultural information as a compensation means. On thewhole, as far as the translation of culture-loaded words and expressions isconcerned, the translators faithfully keep the images of the SL and preserve cultural identity and effectively convey the essence of Chinese culture. Thestatistics and analysis have shown that they have carried out their solemnduty to reproduce Chinese culture in The Scholars and have madeChinese-English translation an effective medium for introducing gloriousChinese culture.It is concluded that the strategies of translating culture-loaded wordsand expressions are closely related to understanding ability of the translator,receiving capacity of the readership and tolerating capacity of the targetculture. Optimum translation strategies can be worked out by translator'scomprehensive consideration of multiple factors mentioned above. Culturalinformation reproduced in TT includes both denotative meaning andconnotative meaning. According to the research, the author proposes thatalienation is much more effective than adaptation in terms of transferringcultural information. Overemphasizing alienation or adaptation is one-sidedand unscientific. Either of the two extremes should be avoided in the courseof translating culture-loaded words and expressions. It is hoped that thepresent study will provide much guidance and a good insight into thetranslation of Chinese works into English.