The Translation Of Chinese Martial Art Images In The Deer And The Cauldron--from The Perspective Of Cultural Turn

With the development of cross cultural communication, martial arts culture is gradually known by the Western world. Current flourishing cultural exchanges have made the translation of martial arts fictions an inevitable trend of history. However, the number of English translations of martial arts fictions is still limited. The abundant cultural connotations embodied in martial arts fictions make it difficult to translate. It is necessary to accelerate the study of Chinese to English translation of martial arts fictions. It is valuable to help promote the Chinese culture overseas and improve the communication and cultural exchange with the Western and other cultures.Since1980s, the cultural turn of translation has become a revolution in the field of translation. Susan Bassnett asserts that the essence of literary translation is cultural translation. Guided by cultural translation theory, this thesis analyzes the translation of Chinese Martial Art (or Wuxia) cultural images which are of particular importance and a strong characteristic of any martial arts fiction. It chooses English translation of Lu Ding Ji, The Deer and the Cauldron, translated by John Minford as the research subject for analysis. It makes a systematic analysis of translation strategies of Wuxia cultural images by the translator and its cultural loss in the process of translation. Three kinds of cultural images based on their functions:99pairs of Wugong movement cultural images,57pairs of faction name and nickname cultural images, and58pairs of argot cultural images from the original work and its English translation. And then, it analyzes the translation strategies and calculates the tendency of each translation technique to comment on the translator’s choice of translation strategy for cultural images. Based on the above analyses, the author, determines the cultural loss of cultural images in translation and calculates its proportion so as to estimate its extent.The present thesis consists of six chapters:the first chapter introduces the research background and significance, makes definitions of some key terms; the second chapter makes a literature review about study of cultural turn, cultural image, cultural loss both abroad and at home; the third chapter is methodology, which contains the research subject, the research questions; the fourth chapter shows the process of data collection, and it argues the validity of collected data in this study; the fifth chapter is the data analysis, it analyzes the data and proposes the answers to research questions; in last chapter, the conclusions are drawn.This study generates a number of findings.Firstly, in the Minford translation, the choices of translating Wuxia cultural images are diversified with different strategies for different cultural images. On the whole, it is apt to foreignization.Secondly, it suffers degrees of cultural loss; the cultural loss proportion of Wugong movement cultural images is33.3%;26.3%for faction name and nickname cultural images, and48%for argot cultural images.Thirdly, the causes of cultural loss are different, for instance, cultural differences, the intentionally omission by the author during the process of creation, the choice of translation strategies of cultural images by the translator, and perhaps the translator’s deficiency in understanding the Chinese cultural images.