A Study On Translation Of Chinese Culture-loaded Words In The True Story Of AH Q From The Perspective Of Pragmatic Presupposition

In the era of economic globalization and cultural diversity, cultural exchangesamong different nations accelerate the assimilation and integration of differentcultures. As the carrier of culture, language plays an important role in culturalexchange. Word, the basic unit of language, is the direct reflection of culture. Thus, itis of great importance to probe into the translation of Chinese culture-loaded words.The translation of Chinese culture-loaded words plays a pivotal role in culturalexchange. Since China is steeped in long history and magnificent culture, there arenumerous Chinese culture-loaded words known for their richness, uniqueness andvariety in meaning. However, the great cultural differences between Chinese andEnglish pose acute challenges and problems to the translation of Chineseculture-loaded words. With the imbalance of E-C translation dominating China now,it is of great urgency and necessity to translate more Chinese literary works abroad,introducing Chinese culture to the rest of the world.Based on the theory of pragmatic presupposition, the thesis aims to explore thetranslation of Chinese culture-loaded words in Lu Xun’s works: The True Story of AhQ translated by the Yangs. According to Nida, culture can be classified into fivecategories, namely linguistic culture, religious culture, ecological culture, materialculture and social culture. The thesis presents that closely related to the five kinds ofculture, Chinese culture-loaded words pose tricky problems for translators to interpretpragmatic presupposition set by the original author, and any inappropriateinterpretation usually causes pragmatic misreading during translation. To avoidtranslational misreading, the translator must take into consideration the pragmaticpresupposition of both the source-language writer and target-language readers;simultaneously, appropriate translation compensations should be made to solve theproblem of cultural default, to lessen the cultural differences and to promotecross-cultural communication．In the Yangs’ translation of Chinese culture—loaded words in The True Story of Ah Q, foreignization and domestication are employed as the main strategies for thetranslation of Chinese culture-loaded words. Generally speaking, foreignization is thetrend in literary translation, for it keeps the presuppositional information and helpspreserve the traditional culture so that target-language readers can appreciate the alienculture through the translation. On the other hand, domestication can help increase thereadability of the target-language text and ease the cultural conflict by altering thepresuppositional information. Therefore, in translating Chinese culture-loaded words,domestication and foreignization are complementary rather than contradictory.In translating Chinese culture-loaded words, the Yangs take three principlesinto consideration:1) correctly comprehending the source text,2) considering thetarget-language readers’ culture,3) preserving the traditional Chinese culture. Thus,in the context of cross-cultural communication, more importance should be attachedto the translation of Chinese culture-loaded words. Translators should enrich theiracademic knowledge as well as improve their cultural awareness, so as to spreadChinese culture abroad and smoothly carry on cross-cultural communication．...