A Comparative Study On The Translation Of The Culture-loaded Words In The Three English Versions Of Na Han From The Perspective Of Cultural Schema Theory

Chinese culture-loaded words are the language units which are able to vividly and directly reflect the features of Chinese culture. Five thousand years of Chinese history and the brilliant culture have contributed to the abundance of Chinese culture-loaded words featured with unique cultural connotations. However, the striking differences between Chinese and English cultures have caused a lot of difficulties and have brought challenges to the translation of culture-loaded words. Therefore, the studies of the translation of culture-loaded words, especially the comparative study are sure to play a more positive role in spreading the Chinese culture.This thesis makes a comparative study of the translation of the culture-loaded words in the three versions of Na Han under the perspective of cultural schema theory. Moreover, cultural schema theory not only gives emphasis on the language forms or the words meanings, but also particularly gives insight into the interaction of the two cultures, the construction and the transfer of the cultural schemas. In the process of translation, there are three situations of culture schemas, respectively cultural schema correspondence, cultural schema conflict, and cultural schema default which provide the three directions for analyzing the culture-loaded words translation. By conducting a comparative study of the three versions, this thesis provides deeper insight into the similarity of the translation strategies adopted by the three translators and the underlying factors that result in difference of the three translations under the three cultural schemas.This thesis finds that under the cultural schema correspondence three translators adopt the similar translation strategies, but there are minor variations of their translations, which is attributed to their different culture backgrounds. Moreover, the culture-loaded words under the cultural schema conflict are generally approached by making adjustments to the pre-existed cultural schemas and reconstruct the cultural schemas. And the culture-loaded words under the cultural schema default are the most difficult ones to deal with. And the most effective way is to create new schemas in the English cultural schemas by adding annotations to achieve the purpose of cultural translation. But they are approached by the three versions of translations differently with regard to constraints on the process of translation, including the translators’ objectives, writer’s purpose and other factors.Because of the author’s limited capacity and energy, the understanding of the cultural schema theory has not been adequate and culture-loaded words involve quite a wide range of aspects. But this thesis only focuses on making a comparative study of the translation of the five major categories of the culture-loaded words in the Na Han under the cultural schema theory. As for the deficiency of this thesis, the author will further improve it in the future research.