Exploration Of "Thick Translation" From The Perspective Of Interpretive Anthropology

With the development of globalization, improving Chinese cultural soft power has become a key factor in enhancing the overall national strength (Sun,2008). Translation, especially Chinese-to-English translation, has received surging attention in the age of promoting Chinese literature’s going out. Xixiang Ji is a glorious treasure in Chinese literature and has attracted readers from home and abroad. The past one hundred years have witnessed various translation versions, which played an important role in spreading Chinese culture.Based on the "thick translation" by Kwame A. Appiah and the interpretive anthropology by Clifford Geertz, the thesis is attempted to study the "thick translation" in the version of The Story of the Western Wing by the famous sinologists Stephen H.West (The United States) and Wilt L.Idema (Netherlands). With a combination of quantitative and qualitative method, it first explores the different categories of the forms of thick translation and then the motives behind for applying the strategy as well as the implications to current translation in China.The research findings are as follows:1) There are four major forms of "thick translation" in the book, namely, introduction, footnotes, illustrations and postscripts, among which the long introduction and abundant footnotes cover a large space of the book, immensely increasing text thickness as well as cultural thickness; 2) The motives for the translators to apply "thick translation" strategy are:linguistic differences between Chinese and English; social ideology and translators’ ideology; Western readers’ acceptability towards Chinese culture; 3) The functions of "thick translation" can be found in constructing a large cultural net to compensate the cultural loss, increasing the interest of Western readers, and promoting equal communication among multi-cultures.Despite the limits of thickening the translated text and affecting the fluency in reading, "thick translation" is still an effective way to boost Chinese literature’s going out and facilitate diverse and equal communication among different cultures.