On Cultural Image Deviation In Literary Translation: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

The "cultural turn" in the translation studies advocates that translation should be taken into account in a wider socio-cultural context, and be viewed as a cross-cultural communication. In response to this situation, many western translation theorists have made significant efforts to promote this development. Among them, Andre Lefevere (1945-1996) should be given priority to, for his Rewriting Theory. He (2004a: vii) has pointed out that translation is the rewriting of the original under two constraints (ideology and poetics) of the receiving culture. Encouraged by his theory, the author attempts to make a study of cultural image deviation in literary translation. Traditionally, the translators believed that translation of the cultural image is really difficult due to the rich cultural meaning and specific aesthetic feeling derived from the vivid and concise image. Fang (方梦之2004: 310) has told us, conveying cultural image in translation should be paid utmost attention to, for the target reader wants to experience the aesthetic feeling of the full and exact cultural image, rather than the fluent translation.However, the original image is inevitably to be distorted, omitted, or transformed after being translated. This thesis is to explore the cultural image deviation arising from translating, with the help of Lefevere's Rewriting Theory, and to give the reasonable explanations to this phenomenon. The thesis also presents the significance of this kind of deviation in translation. In the light of cross-culture objective of translation, the thesis shows us that cultural image should be translated under the principles of cross-cultural awareness and the aesthetic consciousness.Therefore, this thesis, having explored the cultural image deviation from the perspective of cross-culture, and on the basis of the evidence, has tried to form a trinity of the original cultural values, the translator's subjectivity, and the reader's acceptance. The author hopes that this study will shed new light on the practice of translating cultural image, provide the researchers in this field with a new horizon, and offer a wider perspective to the literary translation studies as well.