Chinese Culture In Moment In Peking-a Case Study On Cultural Translation

In1990, Susan Bassnett, together with Andre Lefevere, officially pointed out the "Cultural Turn" in Translation Studies, which means that translation is not merely a linguistic activity, but also a cultural, both "intracultural and intercultural", activity. So translation involves the handling of cultural information. A clear classification of cultural information is necessary in studying translation. Among many approaches proposed by different scholars, the author chooses the Neuro-Linguistic Programming’s (NLP) Logical Levels including environment (where and when), behavior (what), capabilities and strategies (how), beliefs and values (why), and identity (who), as they are quite all-embracing and show obviously the close relationship between culture and language and how culture reveals itself at different levels of language.This thesis takes some aspects of Bassnett’s cultural translation theory as the guiding principle which not only justifies the author’s adopting of the Logical Levels, but also proves the appropriateness of taking domestication and foreignization from the perspective of the frame-driven approach as the translation methodology. The focus of the frame-driven approach on frames instead of "texts" justifies the author’s taking Moment in Peking as a kind of cultural translation.Moment in Peking is one of the most influential and authoritative works of Lin Yutang’s in interpreting Chinese culture. It involves the translation of many Chinese cultural phenomena and coincides with Bassnett’s taking culture as the "translation unit". Lots of examples of cultural information from Moment in Peking are classified according to the Logical Levels, with each example followed by a detailed explanation of its source culture frames, including those implied ones, and Lin Yutang’s translation strategies in creating the frames for the target culture reader in cultural communication. Thus the importance and guiding function of Bassnett’s cultural translation theory in practice, and the feasibility of domestication and foreignization from the perspective of the frame-driven approach in translation, are verified.