On Cultural Translatability-A Case-Study On Yang Bi's Translation Of Vanity Fair

Cultural translation plays a more and more important role than before with the fast pace of globalization. Based on the detailed study on culture, translatability, untranslatability as well as cultural translatability, the author reaches a conclusion that in the age of globalization, the study on cultural translatability is vital in the intercultural communication among nations and regions. Language is a very important media of cultural information. To get a clearer insight of cultural translation, here the author chooses Vanity Fair and Yang Bi's translation of Vanity Fair as the source text to study the culture translatability and give strategies. For the book well reveals the English culture in 19th century, and Yang Bi's translation on Vanity Fair won a wide-spread reputation for her good job on transferring culture elements.Firstly, the author discusses the theoretical basis of translatability and untranslatability—equivalence theory in order to give an overall introduction of the theoretical basis. Then the author gives a more detailed information about translatability, untranslatability and the dialectical relationship between them. There is no absolute untranslatability with the fast development of intercultural communication. With the help of the increased capacity of translators and the readers'familiarity about alien cultures, something untranslatable in the past can be translatable today. To talk about translatability and untranslatability, it is inevitable to give the reasons for them. Therefore, an in-depth study on the causes of cultural translatability and untranslatability will be of great practical significance. However, due to the difference between cultures, the loss of culture elements is certain to happen during the process of translation. So it is important for us to seek strategies to tackle it. Yang Bi's version of Vanity Fair is very successful in dealing with the translation of cultural elements. In her translation, she mainly adopted the domestication strategy to make the English cultural elements more acceptable by Chinese readers. Her translation gives us not only the useful reference but also the good example for future cultural translation. The author makes detailed analysis on the cultural translation of Yang Bi's version.Finally, the author gives strategies for the cultural untranslatability due to the difference of culture. At the same time the author suggests some requirements for the translators. With the development of cultural communication and infiltration between nations and with the improvement of translator's bilingual capacity and common readers'understanding towards foreign cultural elements, cultural elements will become much easier to translate. And it will be easier to reach the goal of cultural translatability. At the age of globalization, it is very important for us to successfully translate cultural elements to the outside world and introduce alien cultures to us. Only this can we reach cultural diversity and prosperity in the new century.