On Moss Roberts’s Translation Of Allusions In Three Kingdoms From The Perspective Of Foreignization

Three Kingdoms is one of the four classics and occupies a very important position in the history of Chinese literature. It contains a vast amount of allusions including myths, fables, political struggles and wars, and profoundly embodies the Chinese history and culture. In recent years, the domestic studies have paid attention to different English versions of Three Kingdoms, especially Moss Roberts’s, and great achievements have been made. Currently, Chinese scholars have done a lot of researches on the translation of Chinese idioms, titles, diction and astrology, but rarely on the translation of the allusions in Three Kingdoms. All these allusions involve rich Chinese cultural elements, therefore, the excellent English translation is required to express them with unique Chinese characteristics.The conception of foreignizing translation was put forward by Lawrence Venuti in his masterwork The Translator’s Invisibility. He advocates foreignization which retains the language and cultural differences to help readers possess abundant imagination about foreign culture. Venuti states that the translator represents an agent of linguistic and cultural alienation and the foreign text needs translation to locate and the self-difference decides its worthiness. The process of translation is the transmission of cultural messages from one language to another. As a rigorous expert in Chinese culture, Moss Roberts preserves the vigor of the original work and passes on the cultural connotations from source language to the target in flexible ways. Unlike those comtempory western translators who mainly adopt domesticating translation, Roberts mainly applies the foreignization strategy which impels English readers to understand the newfangled contents, plots, characters and language style through the foreignness. Therefore, it is important and significant to proceed a close study on his translation. And to discuss his translation strategy will be of great benefit to the future translation of classical Chinese works.This thesis consists of six parts. The introduction surveys the latest researches on the English translation of Three Kingdoms. The first chapter discusses Venuti’s connotation of foreignization. The second chapter demonstrates the cultural features and classification of Chinese allusions in Three Kingdoms. The third chapter analyzes Moss Roberts’s flexibility in using of foreignization, which makes the target language readers feel the heterogeneous culture directly and consequently transfers Chinese cultural connotation effectively. The fourth chapter discusses the significance and revelation of Moss Roberts’s foreignization. The conclusion summarizes what has been discussed above. This thesis tries to analyze how the translation strategy of foreignization is applied to the allusion translation in Moss’s English version of Three Kingdoms, and discusses the academic value of foreignization in cultural transmission.