On Translation Methods Of Culture-loaded Words

In the1980s,“the cultural turn” boomed in translation theory studies. The translationtheorist began to realize that translation is not just a kind of transmission between twolanguages but communication between two cultures. In1990, Susan Bassnett and AndreLefereve firstly proposed “the cultural turn” in translation studies in Translation History andCulture, an endeavor that has ever since changed the situation in which translation studies wasaffiliated to linguistics and literature. Susan Bassnet believes that translation should aim atpromoting cultural communication between two nations, and translators should reserve thecultural factors in originals as many as possible in the process of translating.Wolf Totem is a semi-autobiographical novel composed of a series of wolf stories. Afterits publication, the novel was favorably received by general readers and critics alike. At thesame time, it is paid high attention by main western media and foreign publishing companies.Penguin Group believes that Wolf Totem is a highly enjoyable novel that reflects the featuresof Chinese culture and history for English readers. Meanwhile, it is the only Chinese workthat won Man Asian Literary Prize in2007. Also it is a landmark case of copyright export.Based on cultural translation theory, this thesis takes Wolf Totem translated by HowardGoldblatt as the object of study, and makes a systematic analysis of the translation ofculture-loaded words in the novel, in order to find proper translation strategies ofculture-loaded words. Through an in-depth analysis, it can be seen that the main strategiesadopted by Howard Goldblatt in translating culture-loaded words in this book can preferablyreserves the cultural connotation in the original. From the perspective of the readers, thetranslation methods Howard Goldblatt selects are effective.