On Domestication And Foreignization From The Cultural Perspective

Cultural translation sets higher standards for translators in their bicultural abilities, just as Nida once stated “for truly successful translating, biculturalism is even more important than bilingualism."(Nida,1964), which requires the translators to have a good command of the source language culture on one hand, and to have a study deep into the target language culture on the other hand. During the process of conducting the cultural translation, translators will inevitably apply domestication and foreignization strategies. Domestication is a TL-culture-oriented translation strategy which requires moving the translation close to the TL readers, and translators need to employ means of expression that the TL readers are accustomed to so as to make the translated version more acceptable and understandable; foreignization, however, is a SL-culture-oriented translation method that requests the translation to move close to the SL writer and translators therefore need to apply means of expression that the SL writer has been used to adopting so as to maintain as much exoticness and foreignness of the SL culture as possible.The material this thesis studies is a selection of about 10,000 Chinese words in Chinese Health Regimen, and its English translation was independently done by the author alone. As one member of the Chinese Cultural Series, Chinese Health Regimen systematically introduces Chinese health regimen cultures from all aspects. The cultural elements presented within the book include Fengshui terms, historical allusions, Chinese Traditional Medicine, Chinese architectural and traditional Chinese residence, Chinese traditional philosophy views, Chinese festivals, Chinese food and other aspects with peculiar Chinese culture. Being informative, easy-to-read, this book is a typical material of cultural translation; On the other hand, more and more foreign readers are eager to know more about Chinese culture, especially the culture related to traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese health regimen, but there is fewtranslated versions of books on Chinese health regimen, which has severely limited the spread and communication of it to other cultures. The fact that there is no such an officially published English version of Chinese Health Regimen provides the author the initiative of her attempt to translate it, and by doing so the author hopes to provide more foreign readers an access to the Chinese health regimen culture. By consistently looking up materials relevant to different cultural aspects as well as the previous researches on cultural translation, domestication and foreignization strategies, and on the basis of the English translation practice of Chinese Health Regimen, the author made several conclusions as follows:1. Against the background of an increasing globalization and international cultural communication, cultural translation ought to adhere to the principle of “seeking the similarities while preserving the differences”;2. Based on the necessity of broadcasting Chinese health regimen culture to the outside word, during the English translation of Chinese Health Regimen, the general principle that “foreignization as the primary strategy, while domestication as the complementary one” should be adhered to in C-E cultural translation;3. Generally speaking, when translating some cultural elements that possess ample cultural connotations and strong national flavor, it is wise for translator to utilize foreignization strategy so as to maintain their cultural connotations and national flavor to the best. When applying the foreignization strategy, translators have to make an overall application of the following translating methods: transliteration, literal translation, transliteration plus literal translation, transliteration plus an annotation, literal translation plus an annotation; meanwhile, for those cultural elements that contain colorful cultural connotations but without national flavor, translators had better transfer them in a domesticated way; during this process, free translation, substitution, paraphrasing and omission methods are usually adopted as preferred domesticating methods.To sum up, the study is a good attempt for discussing the implementation of domestication and foreignization strategies in the English version of Chinese Health Regime under the cultural perspective, and it proves the important guiding role ofthem in transcoding culture-related terms, broadens the researching domain of Chinese cultural translation; meanwhile, the author hopes that the attempt of translating Chinese Health Regimen would be a good start for spurring more excellent translators to devote to translating Chinese Health Regimen or other Chinese cultural works, giving Chinese broad and profound cultures more opportunities to go abroad and advancing the cultural communication between China and nations of the world.