A Study On Meanings And Translation Acceptability Of The Chinese Word Of "Lu" In View Of Cultural Functional Equivalence

Jixiang (auspiciousness) is a phenomenon of the Chinese culture whichoriginates in the native habits and customs. The connotation of the auspicious culturehas developed with the extension of history through ages. Happiness praying, moralprinciples, to drive out evil spirits and to destroy calamities are social functions ofChinese propitious culture. Fu, Lu, Shou, Xi, Cai，interrelating and interdependentwith individuality auspicious theme, stand at the core of the propitious culture.Evolving from Fu, Lu has the connotation of pursuing fame and social status. Infeudal China, the higher official position you are on, the more salaries you will get. Asan important branch of the Chinese auspicious culture, Lu has been one of the mostpopular topics appearing in the study of Chinese traditional art, such as painting,paper-cutting and porcelain. However, study on its meanings and translationacceptability from a linguistic perspective has not appeared yet. As such a heavyculture-bounded word with many layers of semantic meanings attaching to it overthousands of years,1) what are the denotative meanings and associative meanings(cultural meanings) of the Chinese word of “Lu”;2) have the meanings of it beenexpressed through translations;3) could the related translations be well accepted andto what degree. These are what will be discussed in this thesis.According to the Cultural-functional Equivalence Theory, proposed by SusanBassnett, translation is not a pure language behavior, but roots in the cultures. Thusthe basic principle of translation is to pursue the cultural equivalence between the twolanguages. In view if this theory, this research was conducted with the investigation ofthe English native speakers, denotative meanings, the cultural specific meanings andthe symbolic meanings of the word “Lu” as various factors, applying dictionary study,literature study, questionnaire, comparison, and quantitative research to explore acceptability of its existing translations. Four facets were touched:1) the acceptabilityof the denotative meanings of Chinese word of Lu;2) the acceptability of the culturalmeanings of Lu;3) the equivalence degree of its symbols in Chinese and English;4)the acceptability of its popular used idioms’translations.The findings of the research are:1) There are4denotative meanings of theChinese word “Lu”: happiness and good fortune; the official salary; the position inan official department; to give salary;8cultural meanings: a kind of happiness andgood fortune; a good place in an examination; high position and great wealth; asecurity for a stable life; a high social status; authority; a big success in one’s studiesand occupation career; the realization of one’s self-values.2) Among the fourdenotative meanings of the Chinese word of “Lu”, official salary and to give salaryshow high-rank acceptability by native speakers while happiness and good fortune areproved not to be accepted well, which means these two meanings are beyond themeaning of “official salary” in English.3) The long-historical Imperial ExaminationSystem, which is unique to China, made a kind of happiness and good fortune and agood position in an examination difficult to be accepted by English native speakers.4)The symbolic meanings of the Chinese word of “Lu” hold its specification.5) Theexisting translations of “Lu” do not win ideal communicative effect.The presented research suggested that the unacceptability of some culturalmeanings of Chinese word of “Lu” comes form the differences between two cultures.Therefore it is useful and important for both readers and translators to know thedifferences of the denotative, cultural and symbolic meanings between the Chineseword of “Lu” and “official salary”.The findings of the research are expected to make a contribution to the futureresearch, such as dictionary compilation and translation of the Chinese word of “Lu”and the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language.