On The Translation Of Culture-loaded Words And Expressions In Yu Hua’s Brothers

Language is the carrier of culture, while culture is deeply embedded in language.Translation involves not only two languages but also two cultures. With the deepeningof cross-cultural exchange in the world, how to render the cultural elements intranslation is drawing increasing attention, among which the translation ofculture-loaded words and expressions has become the focus of study. Differentnations vary in their natural environment, customs, thinking patterns, religions,language expressions and so on, so the words and expressions are endowed withunique cultural connotations. Culture-loaded words and expressions in particular arethe most direct reflections of a culture, whose proper translation is of great practicalsignificance to the cultural exchange all over the world.This paper will probe into the translation of the culture-loaded words andexpressions in Yu Hua’s Brothers with the help of quantitative analysis and qualitativeanalysis. First the author classifies all the culture-loaded words and expressions inBrothers into five cultural aspects, and then analyzes the differences of the conceptualmeaning and associative meaning of them between Chinese and English, and finallyreach a conclusion that foreignization and domestication are the two commontranslation methods adopted to render the cultural elements, either of which alonecannot make translation in its true sense. Foreignization is source-language oriented,aiming to introduce the foreign culture to the target readers, while domestication istarget-language oriented, with the foreignness in the source culture minimized todeliver the target readers a translated work as natural as the original. Complementaryrather than contradictory, these two translation methods combined can help the targetreaders appreciate the original culture while understanding what the original workrepresents, thus promoting the cultural exchange between the oriental and the west.Though Brothers enjoys a high status in international literature, the study into itstranslation is not that extensive. This paper just explores into the translation ofculture-loaded words and expressions in Brothers from the cultural aspect, with a lot more aspects to be discussed and researched. Through this paper, the author hopes toshed light on the translation of other Chinese literary works, laying the foundation forthe Chinese culture to go global soundly and steadily.