| The “Cultural Turn” of Translation Studies made researchers at home and abroadfully aware of the fact that translating is not merely a trans-lingual act but also across-cultural communicative act, and therefore conducting translation studies fromthe cultural perspectives has become an important part of current translation studies.Cultural differences are always regarded as the stumbling block to the communicationbetween different nations, so how to deal with culture-loaded information in theoriginal text, especially those culture-specific items (CSIs), and find out theirequivalents in the target culture has increasingly become a hot topic for translationresearchers.Chinese Classics are not only the quintessence of brilliant Chinese culture butalso the common spiritual treasure of mankind. If the Chinese nation wants to standrock-firm in the family of world nations, it is necessary to enhance the national softpower through promoting cultural influence and communication. In this sense,translating Chinese Classics is indispensable. The translation of Chinese Classicsinvolves cultural factors such as history, politics, philosophy, religion and so on.Therefore, how to translate the culture-loaded information in Chinese Classics poses areal challenge for translators.Researches on the translation of culture-specific items have so far beencharacterized by theoretical speculations plus some chosen examples, which isinsufficient to effectively observe and describe the actual translation phenomenahappening in the translation process. The emergence of Descriptive TranslationStudies in the1970s affords a new perspective of studying CSIs translation. This paperwill describe the actual translation methods adopted by the translators in translatingthe culture-specific items on the basis of careful observations, summarize the laws oftranslation, and then probe into the conditioning factors underlying translationstrategies. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are adopted in the research.In this thesis, Aixelá’s definition of CSIs is employed to identify CSIs and theircategorization. Then six chapters are selected randomly from one of Chinese Classics: Rulinwaishi. CSIs identified and their corresponding expressions of the Englishversion by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang in the six chapters are taken as data andexamples to conduct the research. Ten kinds of CSIs and nine categories of translationmethods are discovered and the respective distribution frequency of all these kinds inthe source text and target text are also offered. On the basis of statistical analysis, twoorientations of foreignization and domestication are presented in translating CSIs.Foreignization accounts for a high percentage in the practice of CSIs translation,especially the frequent adoption of linguistic (non-cultural) translation. The renderingof CSIs in Chinese-English translation are subject to the restraints of language, cultureand translator.It can be concluded from the research that in translating CSIs from Chinese intoEnglish, the ratio of CSIs translated in accordance with the source culture is higherthan that of those translated in compliance with the target culture. Linguistictranslation is the most frequently used method in translating CSIs, and absolutetranslation and free translation come next, with altogether74.2%of CSIs translated byadopting these three methods. Nine varieties of translation methods are adopted intranslating ten kinds of CSIs in the Chinese classic—Rulinwaishi, which have beenmainly conditioned by linguistic factors, cultural factors, translator’s cultural stanceand translator’s purpose. To generalize, in translating CSIs in Rulinwaishi,foreignization is adopted as their dominant translation strategy with domesticationbeing the complementary strategy. Therefore, the translators convey the culturalessence, preserve the cultural flavor to a maximal extent and make the translation ofChinese Classics an effective medium for introducing glorious Chinese culture. |
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