Bridging The Cultural Gap In Literary Translation

In literary translation, translators will unavoidably meet the cultural gap between source and target languages, and the translation of cultural-loaded elements has always been the focus of dispute in the translation circle. Many translators think that their translation is impossible owning to the cultural differences in language systems, and nickname is one of such phenomena that deserve much attention. In Shuihuzhan, there are a lot of nicknames peculiar to Chinese culture, and exploring the techniques in translating these nicknames can provide some insights into the translation of nicknames in other literary works. By comparing the two translated versions of Shuihuzhuan by Sidney Shapiro and Pearl S Buck, the author, from the angle of culture, tries to analyze the deep cultural connotations contained in the original work, the translation skills used, and the losses in translation, and suggests some possible compensation methods. Based on the translation theories on translatability and untranslatability, domestication and foreignization, this thesis aims to discuss the techniques for the translation of nicknames. There are no given rules for the choice of translation techniques, and whether to use literal or liberal technique should be a flexible decision to make.Whatever principles or techniques taken, the final goal of translation is to transfer the information contained in the source language as faithfully as possible, be it semantically, rhetorically, or stylistically. Hopefully, the discussion will be of some value in the translation of other similar language phenomena and similar literary works.