Domestication Or Foreignization? A Case Study Of Three English Translations Of Shen Congwen’s “Xiaoxiao”

As cultural studies have attracted more and more attention in literary theory and translation fields since the 1970 s, the debate on domestication and foreignization has gradually become one of the hot issues in the translation field. Foreignization requires that the translator should send the readers abroad by breaking the target language norms to a certain extent and using the expressions which are similar to the foreign language to show the linguistic and cultural differences between the source language and the target language; while domestication requires the translator to bring the target readers back home by adopting expressions that they are familiar with. In the era of frequent cultural exchanges, the translation of the culture-rich literary works enters people’s sight. At the same time, the issue about what kind of translation strategies should be employed in literary translation has attracted the attention of translation theorists. Shen Congwen is a writer with unique style. His works are full of West Hunan characteristics. Thus how to translate his culture-rich novels into the English texts which have the same style as that of the source texts is a subject worth exploring. Therefore, the thesis selects three English translations of Shen’s Xiaoxiao as the research object and adopts the method of qualitative analysis and case analysis to analyze the translation of the culture-loaded words and expressions in the three versions.The thesis falls into six chapters. The first chapter is the introduction in which the background and significance of the study are briefly introduced, and then the research methods and the thesis’ s framework are proposed. Chapter Two is a literature review. The studies and researches related to the English translations of Shen Congwen’s novels both at home and abroad are demonstrated. In Chapter Three, the theories of domestication and foreignization are expounded. In the fourth chapter, the factors influencing domestication and foreignization are analyzed in details from three angles. In Chapter Five, first the specific reasons why the author chooses Xiaoxiao as the research object are illustrated. Then the writer of the source text and the source text itself are elaborated. The third part of Chapter Five is a general survey of the three English translations. In the fourth part, the focus is the comparison of the culture-loaded words in the three English translations of Xiaoxiao. Chapter Six is the conclusion of the thesis.Under the theoretical framework of foreignization and domestication, the thesis divides the culture-loaded words into five types in accordance with Nida’s cultural theory. Through the analysis of the translations of these words, it can be seen that the three translators have their own preferences in the choice of translation strategies. On the whole, under the background of globalization, there is an orientation of foreignization in literary translation. With detailed analysis of the examples listed in the thesis, the author argues that the foreignization translation can be more advantageous in keeping the special charm of Chinese culture. However, based on the fact that the readers’ understanding of Chinese culture is limited, the domestication translation can be used as a supplementary means to mitigate the cultural conflict so as to achieve better communication effects.