Impact Of Cultural Distance On Tranlation Strategies Foe Culture-loaded Terms

By comparing the different translation strategies used in the Korean and English versions of Mo Yan’s "Life and Death are Wearing Me out", I try to identify the cultural and historical reasons behind these differences. My analysis focuses on translations of religious expressions, myths, metaphors, idioms, proper names and other unique Chinese expressions. In addition, Korean uses inflexions to indicate the identity, status or emotion of the speakers and listener, so I used an independent chapter to discuss its influence in Korean translation.By comparing the English and Korean translations, I identify reasons why the Korean translator usually uses literal translation and the English translator usually uses free translation with explanation. Also, the impact of cultural globalization is shown in these translations since lots of unique Chinese expressions may find their equivalents both in English and in Korean. In translating idioms or dialogues, the Korean translator often uses domestication while the English translator often uses foreignization.Meanwhile, we can not ignore the impact brought by cultural globalization and cultural convergence. These two factors are diminishing the cultural distance and are exerting great influence on the choice of translation strategies.I hope the discovery made in this essay can contribute to the translation of Chinese literature in the context of global interest in Chinese culture.