A Study On The Translation Strategies Of Waiting From The Perspective Of Cross-culture

Waiting is an English novel written by Ha Jin, a famous Chinese American writer. It embodies distinct social characteristics of Culture Revolution, and entails many culture-loaded words and phrases and Chinese culture. In order to translate this novel linguistically and culturally, the translator needs to choose proper translation strategies.In order to choose the appropriate translation strategy, the classification of cultural-loaded words and phases should be taken into consideration. The theories involved in this paper, namely are the functional equivalence theory, Hofstede’s four key dimensions of cultural orientation, Edward Hall’s high context versus low context, and Ting-Toomy’s four verbal interaction dimensions. The paper will discuss whether the translated version reaches the cultural communicative purpose and make the target language readers react closely to the writer’s expectation.Cultural-bound words and phrases are classified into five types. They are cultural terms of materials, of geography, of customs, of religious beliefs, and of political system. The strategies mainly used are literal translation, transliteration, free translation, omission, addition and borrowing. For each type of cultural terms, there may be one strategy used, or mixture of strategies. No matter which strategy is applied, the translated text should be in accordance to the target readers’culture system and the original writer’s purpose.