Foreignization And Domestication In The Translation Of Introduction Of Classical Suzhou Gardens

Suzhou has long been known as a city of Classical Gardens. The Classical Gardens ofSuzhou enjoyed great reputation around the world and are considered as the best of itskind, featuring exquisiteness and elegency. Classical Suzhou Gardens rank among the bestof Private Gardens of China, which carry rich traditional Chinese culture and highlyrepresent the major achievements of Chinese Classical Gardens. In a word, ClassicalSuzhou Gardens form a precious cultural and artistic treasure of China and the world.However, a glimpse of the current translation versions of Classical Suzhou Gardens isenough for us to discover mistakes or misunderstandings here and there, especially in fullydelivering the idea and cultural backgrounds of Gardens, which will put Chinese cultureunder disadvantages during intercultural exchanges.The translation of Classical Suzhou Gardens falls into the category of tourismtranslation, involving a lot of cultural factors. Therefore, the introduction of ClassicalSuzhou Gardens acts as an important bridge between Chinese culture and the world andshould not be neglected. In1995, Lawrence Venuti introduced the strategies ofForeignization and Domestication to the field of translation. His theory is based on thealready existing translation methods of Literal translation and Liberal translation. What’svaluable is that he pays more attention to the aesthetic and cultural factors. Foreignizationis the strategy of retaining the information from the source text and bringing the readersclose to the writers, while Domestication is the other way around, bringing writers close tothe target readers. In this paper, I will fully apply these two strategies into the translation ofintroduction of Classical Suzhou Gardens. In cases where it is difficult for target readers tounderstand, the strategy of Domestication is used to narrow the distance between targetreaders and writers and ensure that the readers can well appreciate the text. While indelivering the art and culture of gardening, the strategy of Foreignization is more favored,so as to introduce the precious culture of gardening to the western world and enhanceintercultural exchanges.