A Study On The Chinese Diet Name’s Translation From The Perspective Of Foreignization

The purpose of translation is disseminating information and culture, therefore we need to reduce the loss of culture to the minimum in the translation process to maintain the diversity of cultures. With the development of globalization, cultural exchange and integration between nations will continue. And in the process of cultural communication the strong culture will inevitably invade the weak one. In this case, how to keep the national culture has became an important issue. Foreignization strategy is helpful in keeping the foreignizing elements of the source language to the maximum in ideology, rhetoric and style. So it can promote the culture exchanges between countries.China has a long history of dietary culture. With the increasing communication between China and foreign countries, more and more foreign people are interested in Chinese diet. In this regard, translation concerning dietary culture shoulders heavy responsibility and will undoubtedly plays an important part between China and other nations. So the translation of Chinese dietary name is of great significance. However, the study of this field has not been taken seriously and published researches of this field are countable.The author of this thesis attempts to study the translation of the diet names in Hong Lou Meng from the perspective of foreignization. The two complete English versions of Hong Lou Meng are the objectives of the study. One version is The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes and John Minford; the other is A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Xianyi and Clady Yang. Based on the theories of foreignization, the author makes a contrasting study about the choice of translation strategies when they translate the diet names in the original works. This thesis starts with brief background surveys of foreignization in origin, development and main forms. Under the perspective of the theories mentioned above, the author selects20diet names from the source text and then analyzes the cultural implications in them. Their English translations are studied by a contrasting method and the author makes a quantitative study about the foreignization strategies the two versions adopted. This thesis helps to compensate for the deficiencies of existing researches and is helpful to improve the translator’s flexibility in the use of translation strategies.