An Analysis Of Idiom Translation In Fortress Besieged From The Perspective Of Semantic Translation Principle

Ch’ien Chung-shu’s Fortress Besieged is a scholar novel, which contains profound cultural stories and earns favorable comments. Many idioms in the novel reflect Chinese cultural features. Most of these idioms originate from the ancient verses or poems, allusions and historical stories, which can show the author’s great erudition and excellent language skills. Its English translation version was co-translated by Jeanne Kelly and Nathan K.Mao in1979, which received wide attention and high acclaim, especially the literal translation in Fortress Besieged attracted scholars’attention. The English version retains original Chinese way of expression and cultural features as much as possible. Given that Fortress Besieged is a scholar novel and its targeted readers are the intellectuals of considerable education and upbringing, this essay intends to analyze the translation strategy of idioms from the perspective of Peter Newmark’s semantic translation and analyze how the translator meets the needs of the specific readers with the help of semantic translation principle. It concludes that the novel’s text type and the expected readers would directly influence the translation strategy, to be specific, Fortress Besieged is a scholar novel, and the intended readers are the intellectuals with high education, which are the key factors which prompt the translators to adopt the literal translation.