The Cultural Translation Function Of "china English"

Linguists believe that China English is one of English varieties. As therepresentatives of Chinese culture, Chinese classic literary works should go aboardwith the help of the language presenting Chinese culture, and China English is likelyto be such a language. However, in the translation of Chinese literary works, the useof China English hasn’t been paid enough attention. Therefore, it is necessary to studythe cultural function of China English embodied in Chinese literary works from theperspective of cultural translation.As a “foreigner” translator and with10million translated English words in histranslator career of over50years, Sidney Shapiro has made an irreplaceablecontribution to the translation cause of China. Because of his special cultural identityand accurate grasp of the original texts, many of Shapiro’s translated works bear thedistinct features of China English. But there are only a couple of scholars doingpreliminary research on China English used in Shapiro’s translated works. The thesisselects Shapiro’s representative translation Outlaws of the Marsh as the researchobject, analyzes the syntax and text quantitatively and qualitatively by establishingbilingual parallel corpus, hoping to analyze the manifestation of China English at thetwo levels and explore its cultural translation function.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is the basic introduction of thebackground, purpose, significance, methodology and outline of the thesis. Chaptertwo is the literature review in which the research status of China English, thedeficiencies of cultural translation in China English and the paucity of research onShapiro’s translated works are demonstrated, and then points out the necessity ofanalyzing the China English used in Shapiro’s translations by empirical study. Chapter three introduces the process of establishing the corpus of Outlaws of the Marsh, theretrieval devices used in the research and the procedures of using corpus. Chapter fouranalyzes China English used in the Outlaws of the Marsh at the levels of syntax andtext quantitatively and qualitatively, summarizes China English’s features at the twolevels, and then confirms its cultural translation function. Chapter five is the summaryof the research which indicates the features and causes of cultural translation functionof China English in Outlaws of the Marsh translated by Shapiro. Finally the thesispoints out the deficiencies of the research and puts forward some issues open tofurther studies.The thesis believes that the features of China English and its cultural translationfunction embodied in Shapiro’s translated works are significant to the study of ChinaEnglish and outgoing of Chinese culture and deserve further exploration.