A Study Of Chinese Culture-loaded Terms’ Translation In Gladys Yang’s Translated Works

During the development of human society and history, people create a lot ofmaterial wealth and spirit wealth. Culture is both the material wealth and the spirit wealth.With the development of the world, many scholars and translators pay more attention tothe translation of culture. The relationship between language and culture can be definedas: language is the carrier of the culture and reflects culture. Words, as the basic units oflanguage, reflect the culture feature. Translation is not only the translation between twolanguages but also the two cultures. The close relationship between translation andculture depends on the relationship between culture and language. Translation can becarried out because there is similarity among different cultures. However, differentcultures have different characteristics, which cause troubles for the successful translationand cultural exchanges. Language specialty refers to the special characteristics of acertain language. It refers to the words that have no equivalents in another language.Culturally-loaded words and expressions refer to the phrases and idioms that reflect thespecial things in a certain culture. It reflects the unique activity modes, social life andcustoms of a certain group of people.Language reflects a certain culture and translation acts like a bridge for the culturalexchange among different nations. The Chinese-English translation is to transmit Chinesetraditional culture and promote the cultural exchange between the East and the West.China has a long history and brilliant culture, so there are many culturally-loaded wordsand expressions. The question that how to introduce China’s culture and translateChinese culturally-loaded words and expressions has long been paid attention to. YangXianyi and Gladys Yang are very famous in China’s translation field. They make a greatcontribution to the translation career. As English, Gladys Yang translates many Chinesenovels such as the Border Town, the Husband written by Shen Congwen and the Butterflyby Wang Meng. She has knowledge of English and Chinese. She knows Chinese cultureand English culture. The translation strategies that she uses play a great role intransmitting the Chinese culture and have high research value. This thesis researches thetranslation strategies in Gladys Yang’s translation works from Skopos theory. It makes asystematic research of the translation strategies Gladys Yang uses to translate the Chineseculturally-loaded words and expressions. This paper consists of three parts; they include introduction, contents andconclusion.Introduction mainly introduces the current researches on translation strategies usedby Gladys Yang and the research meaning, purpose of the thesis. With the developmentof the world, the connection and cultural exchange are closer and closer among differentcountries. Translation plays a very important role in cultural exchange as a bridge toconnect two different cultures. Therefore, the translation of the Chinese culturally-loadedwords and expressions is very important for promoting the cultural exchange betweenChina and other countries. However, the translator will come across the culturaldifficulties in Chinese-English translation especially in the translation of Chineseculture-loaded words and expressions. In order to transmit Chinese culture, manyscholars focus on the translation strategies for Chinese culture-loaded terms. This thesisaims to make the translator translate under the theory’s guide so that cultural exchangescan be better promoted. This thesis also hopes to lay some theoretical basis on the similarresearch.The second part is the main part of the thesis, including three parts:Chapter One mainly discusses the definition of culture-loaded words and theclassification and current study on culture-loaded words and expressions, the translatingprinciple and the significance of culture-loaded words and expressions’ study.Culturally-loaded words and expressions refer to the phrases and idioms that reflect thespecial things in a certain culture. It reflects the unique activity modes, social life andcustoms of a certain culture.Chapter Two is the study of translation strategies of culture-loaded words andexpressions in Gladys Yang’s translated works from Skopos theory. It first introduces theformation and development of Skopos theory and the three important rules of Skopostheory. Then, the thesis gives us an introduction of Gladys Yang including her life and thetranslated works. The most important part is to discuss the translation strategies used byGladys Yang in her translated works. This chapter classifies the culture-loaded words andexpressions into five kinds and then analyzes one by one. Gladys Yang mainly usesliteral translation, literal translation plus explanation, transliteration, transformation,omission and so on. From these kinds of strategies, it is generalized that Gladys Yang mainly uses foreignization in her translation and resorts to domestication as asupplementary approach. It gives many examples to analyze the application offoreignization and domestication in Gladys Yang’s translation.Chapter Three is the study of Chinese culture-loaded terms translation in GladysYang’s translated works. In this chapter, the thesis first analyzes the use of translationstrategies in Gladys Yang’s translation. She mainly uses foreignization. The thesisintroduces the embodiment of foreignization and domestication in Gladys Yang’stranslation strategies. At the last part, the function of foreignization is generalized. It isthe need for external dissemination of Chinese culture and intercultural communication.Conclusion is the summary of the whole thesis. In the part, the thesis further statesthe purpose and the significance of the research.This thesis aims to let the readers have a better understanding on Gladys Yang andher translation strategies on Chinese culture-loaded words and expressions. Therefore,the Western readers can know more about the Chinese culture. This thesis providessuggestion to the Chinese translators in the future translation. Through the introduction toSkopos theory and Gladys Yang’s translation strategies, the thesis is to make thetranslator translate successfully with the guide of theory in order to promote the culturalexchange between China and the Western countries.