A Remark On Lawrence Venuti's Translation Theory

In recent years, translators have become more aware of the importance of cultural communication and transmission and have paid more attention to Venuti's translation theory. Venuti has critized and challenged the dominant domesticating translation, and he has concluded that the objective of translating is to reserve the "foreignness" rather than seeking similarity. In order to make the translator visible in the translating practice, he has advocated the foreignization strategy. His translation theory has exerted a new round of hot discussion about domestication and foreignization at home and abroad.First, this thesis reviews Venuti's translation theory in detail. He uses the term "invisibility" to signify the translator's situation and activity in contemporary Anglo-American culture. He indicates that the "invisibility" is to make the translator invisible in the version, which is a kind of illusion of transparency. Such transparency requires that the translator should try her/his best to make the version fluent and easy to be understood. He analyzes the determinants of invisibility in Anglo-American culture, and considers that this is a representation of culture hegemony. He puts forward that foreignizing translation in English can be a form of resistance against the ethnocentrism and cultural imperialism. He advocates the foreignization strategy aiming to develop a theory and practice of translation that resists dominant target-language cultural values so as to signify the linguistic and cultural differences of the foreign text. Next, in studying the cultural and historical background of Venuti's translation theory, the thesis tries to summarize the foundation of his translation theory. His translation theory is established under the situation of cultural hegemony and postcolonialism, and founded on the basis of deconstruction.The thesis makes a critical analysis of Venuti's translation theory, pointing out its contributions and limitations. Venuti's foreignizing strategy can highlight the status of the translator; enrich the target language and culture. But he ignores the aesthetic requirement of the target-language readers and neglects the text type of translation. Also there is some weakness in resisting the cultural hegemony by using foreignization strategy only. The thesis considers the most influential contribution made by Venuti is that he views translation practice from the cultural perspective. And it gives great illumination to China's choice of translation strategy.The aim of the thesis is to give some assistance to Chinese translation studies by making the critical analysis of Venuti's translation theory. So at last, the thesis analyzes the present situation of Chinese cultural, rethinks domestication and foreignization in China, and concludes that the best choice of translation strategy in China should be the combination of domestication and foreignization. The combination of these two strategies can avoid the problems caused by the extreme translation, and also is an optimization of the target-language and culture.