On Translation Variation Of Culture-loaded Words

With the rapid development of political, economic and culturalcommunication all over the world, it has inevitably been a necessity to disseminatenational cultures effectively and widely so as to strengthen the cultural soft power. Inthis light, cultural translation plays an indispensable part in interculturalcommunications around the globe. Apparently, there exist some remarkabledifferences in thinking modes, behavioral guidelines, social customs and life valuesbetween western and eastern cultures. Any language possesses its unique grammaticalsystem, though; interlingual translation is feasible to some extent. Translators,undoubtedly, will have some difficulty in intercultural translation, the translation ofculture-loaded words in particular. The Joy Luck Club is the masterpiece of Amy Tan,a Chinese American authoress, in which the authoress makes full use of a largenumber of words and expressions that embody distinctive cultural connotations.These words and expressions, also called culture-loaded words, are widely applied toall aspects of human life and express various cultural meanings in different contexts.Moreover, some specific expressions and regular collocations can rarely be found inordinary dictionaries, thus making it more difficult to translate culture-loaded wordsprecisely. This thesis sets out to explore the strategies for E-C translation ofculture-loaded words in The Joy Luck Club, aiming to help readers master andtranslate the frequently-used culture-loaded words.Based on an extensive study of relevant literature, this thesis firstly gives asystematic introduction to the theory of translation variation. And then taking theculture-loaded words in The Joy Luck Club as the study subject, it conducts adescriptive study on the translation variation strategies of these culture-loaded words,and makes an elaborate analysis of the strategies for selective translation, rewordingtranslation and explanatory translation in particular through the implementation ofpractical research, which could provide a new perspective for the translation ofculture-loaded words in literary works. Finally, it concludes that selective translationis normally used for those well-known culture-loaded words; rewording translation ismainly applied to translate the culture-loaded words that are rich in culturalconnotations and have distinctive features; explanatory translation is the dominantmethod for elusive and profound culture-loaded words.