A Study Of The Strategies For Interpreting Chinese Idioms Into English Guided By The Interpretive Theory

Chinese idioms, which embody the essence of Chinese culture andChinese people’s wisdom, are very difficult to cope with ininterpretation. On account of the late advent of interpretation studies,there is a lack of research on such specific projects as one concerningthe strategies for interpretation of Chinese idioms guided by theInterpretive Theory of Translation (ITT). Clearly, it is of great significanceand practical value to conduct this research.This thesis aims at proving the feasibility of applying such majorstrategies as domestication and foreignization to interpretation ofChinese idioms guided by ITT. First, the thesis briefly overviews relevantliterature such as ITT, the two major translation strategies known asdomestication and foreignization, as well as current studies on ITT andmain strategies for interpretation of Chinese idioms. Next, the authorinvestigates the characteristics of Chinese idioms by analyzing fourcategories of Chinese idioms classified according to whether they havecorresponding English idioms in semantic and pragmatic aspects. Whatfollows is the most important part of the thesis. The author explores thepracticability of applying domestication and foreignization tointerpretation of Chinese idioms and illustrates it by analyzing manyexamples. Moreover, the thesis conducts a case study of interpretedChinese idioms in a speech to verify the fact that domestication is morefrequently employed than foreignization. The research methods for thiscase study are qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis.This research is expected to enlighten interpreters and help theminterpret Chinese idioms into English in a rewarding manner.