The Study Of The Application Of Domestication And Foreignization In The Prospective Of Translative Ethics

Ethics is a moral philosophy, which studies the origin, nature and evolution of moral phenomenon. It is a science to reveal the social and moral code of conduct. Translation is viewed as a cross-lingual, cross-cultural information exchange. As long as cross-cultural contacts between different nations and countries occur, problems in ethics would inevitably arise. Only under the guidance of ethics can we correctly handle the relations in the translation activities and coordinate the conflict and fusion between foreign culture and local culture.In the recent 20 years, there is a clear trend in translation studies, from the traditional language symbol transformation to functional equivalence that puts more emphasis on culture. As a result, translation is regarded as a cross-culture communication activity, which involves in the transformation of different cultures. As how to deal with the culture factor in two texts, especially the differences between the source language culture and target language culture, there are generally two opposite standpoints:domestication and foreignization.Domestication and foreignization are two main translation strategies; they are two aspects of contradiction. Most of the time in the 20th century, domestication is dominant. But with the international cultural exchanges and continues communication among people become more frequent in the 21th century, foreignization becomes more widely used in translation. But the debate on them has never ceased.This paper discusses translative ethics systematically. It begins with the relation between translation and ethics, holding that it is the requirements of the development of translation theory to introduce ethics into translation study and combine the two together to solve the specific issues in translation practice based on the relevant principles of ethics. It then analyzes the necessity and importance of translative studies. After that, the relationship between translative and the strategy of foreignization and domestication will be discussed. The paper mainly expounds the guidance of translative ethics based on Habermas'communicative action theory to the specific implication of domestication and foreignization in the two versions of A Dream of Red Mansion.