On The Employment Of Four-character Idioms In English-chinese Translation

Chinese idioms, generally regarded as the essence of the Chinese language and the deposit of Chinese history and culture, play an important role in the development of Chinese language and culture. Owing to their conciseness in form and richness in meaning, Chinese idioms are widely employed by the Chinese people in daily life and literary works. Among all idioms, four-character idioms rank the first in terms of quantity and significance. For its great merits such as profound meaning and vividness, four-character idioms are frequently used by Chinese writers, scholars and translators.In English to Chinese translation, the adoption of Chinese four-character idioms will increase the literary grace, appeal of language and make the target text more presentable, melodious and delightful. However, the employment of four-character idioms also gives rise to disputes over their overuse in translating. While some scholars are firm advocates of four-character idioms, others argue the overuse of them will result in the loss of the style of original text. Since four-character idioms are forms with strong Chinese characteristics, translations with a lot of idioms are usually conducted by adopting domestication strategy. Therefore, as a matter of fact, whether we should adopt a lot of four-character idioms in translation is the extension of the dispute over domestication and foreignization.This thesis is intended to explore the advantages and potential disadvantages of employing four-character idioms in English to Chinese translation. In this thesis, the author summaries some scholars’views over this issue and introduce the translation strategy of domestication and foreignization. Besides, this paper also lists some examples of adopting four-character idioms in English to Chinese translation. The author hopes that this paper would provide some constructive help for translators while doing translation.