Transference Of Cultural Image In Chinese-English Translation

Translation is a kind of cross-cultural communicative activity, with the transference of culture as its essence. Cultural image is a specific cultural symbol of a nation or a country with rich and profound cultural connotations. However, because of the great differences between Chinese and Western cultures, the transference of cultural image has always been a major challenge faced by translators.Skopostheorie, proposed by German scholar Hans Vermeer confirms that translation is a purposeful activity of human beings. During the process of translation, translators adopt different translation strategies in accordance with different translation purposes and target readers' requirements. Within the framework of this theory, the criterion to judge translation quality is changed from "equivalence" into "adequacy" of translated version, which provides an approach for the transference of cultural image.Building on Skopostheorie, the author is intended to probe into the translation purposes and methods employed in Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang's A Dream of Red Mansions in order to transfer Chinese traditional cultural image, then, some translation strategies and methods are proposed to preserve the cultural image of the source language in Chinese-English (C-E for short) translation.The thesis comes to the conclusion that Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang chiefly adopt foreignization as the main strategy and domestication as the supplementary. In order to transfer Chinese cultural image, foreignization strategy should be selected to maintain the cultural characteristics of the source language; as for some cultural images which are not easy to be understood by foreign readers, translators should promote the cross-cultural communication with the skopos of the acceptance of readers. At last, the author points out that, in C-E translation, with "transferring Chinese cultural image maximumly" as the translation purpose, translators are expected to employ strategies of foerignization and domestication flexibly and to apply varied translating methods in order that the original cultural connotation can be retained, and translated versions can be understood by readers.