On Translating Culture-Loaded Terms Into English

The world is on the way of globalization, and in the globalized world, translation studies, especially translation of culture-loaded terms become more and more important. Globalization makes people interested in familiarity with other cultures in different aspects, and people with different language are urging to communicate. Translation and globalization, therefore, are interrelated. There are different languages in the world, which manifest different culture. As far as the relation among these languages is concerned, culture factors become indispensible necessities for translation, especially in the translating of culture-loaded terms. Translators face many problems in translating culture-loaded terms.Culture-loaded terms(CLTs), which are also named culture-bound terms, culture color words or culture-specific expressions, are those concepts and reference loaded with specific national cultural information and indicate deep national culture. They are direct or indirect reflections of national culture. Translation is a process of cultural elements transference. Hence, this thesis focuses on cultural translation, especially addressing the issue of culture equivalence in the translation of Chinese culture-loaded terms (CCLTs). The translation of Chinese culturally-loaded words is beneficial to intercultural communication, but because of unique culture information embedding in them, the translation of Chinese culture-loaded words translation is a trouble for translators.Chapter one is an introduction of the thesis which mentioned the research significance, objectives, methodology and layout of the thesis. The research on culture-loaded term is a must in the context of cultural translation.Chapter two is a literature review which introduces the theory of cultural equivalence. Cultural equivalence theory is the theoretical basis of the research. As a criteria of translation, cultural equivalence theory is a more outstanding and realistic one for the translation of culture-loaded terms.Chapter three attempts to define what culture-loaded term is. Based on Nida’s category of culture, culture-loaded terms are divided into ecological culture-loaded terms, social culture-loaded terms, material culture-loaded terms, linguistic culture-loaded terms and religious culture-loaded terms. Chapter four discusses how to achieve cultural equivalence in the translation of culture-loaded terms based on cultural equivalence theory. The author attempts to put forward three principles and six methods.In conclusion part, the author gives the summary of the whole thesis and plans the further research. Translating culture term is regarded as one of the great challenges, because it depends greatly upon specific cultural settings. Translators should notice the following three factors to achieve cultural equivalence of culture-loaded term translation: pay attention to the cultural differences between the source and target language; pay attention to the context of the usage of culture-loaded terms; to take the reader’s comprehension, acceptability of readers into consideration.In this paper, the author explores the difficulties of CCLTs translation, and tries to help TL readers gain an "equivalent effect" by adopting the concept of cultural equivalence.