A Study On The Implicitation And Explicitation Of Cultural Elements In The Translation Of Classical Chinese Prose

China has a long history of culture while the classical works are the gem of the Chineseculture. Recently, in the process of globalization, Chinese culture is introduced to the West,more and more foreigners are becoming interested in the Chinese traditional culture.Nowadays, many scholars have been devoting themselves to spreading Chinese culture. Sofar many classical Chinese works have been translated, and much research has also beenmade on such works. However, most of those researches are concerned about the fictions,drama and poetry, while the translation of classical prose has been neglected. In fact, thereare even not many translated versions of classical Chinese prose. After studying thoseresearches about prose, the author found that most of these articles analyze the prosetranslation from the perspective of aesthetics, while the cultural elements in classical prosehave been neglected. This study aims at analyzing the implicitation and explicitation of thecultural elements in the translation of the classical prose anthology Gu Wen Guan Zhi fromthe perspective of cultural translation theory. The thesis intends to figure out howtranslators deal with the cultural elements in classical Chinese prose and explore thespecific translation strategies concerning explicitation and implicitation. Finally, the thesisdiscusses the method translators should take when meeting the cultural elements and thecapacities translators should possess in order to achieve the best transference of culturalelements.The major findings of this study are summarized as follows: When coming acrosscultural elements, the translator tends to take explicit methods. When dealing with thenames of places, animals and plants, the translator usually adopts the literal translation. Asto the official posts, illusions and historical figures, the translator may take literaltranslating with annotations or give explanation in the target text. However, when thedetails are not necessarily to be translated at length, the translators often take the methodsof implicitation like deletion and reduction for readers’ better understanding. Sometranslators add an introduction to the original text and the author which can help thewestern readers to understand the background of the original text. In order to realize thebest transference of the cultural elements in classical prose, the translators should beequipped with rich background knowledge, bilingualism and sensitivity to the emotion ofthe original text. The results of this study can offer some enlightenment to the exploration of the translation of classical Chinese prose.