A Study On The Translatability Of Culture-loaded Words From The English Version Of Big Breasts Andwide Hips

With the increasing development of globalization, the communication among countries promotes the cultural blending, and literary translation with large amount of culture- loaded words plays an important role of transmitting national culture. As the special expression form of language, the translation of culture- loaded words is always a challenge, and the reason lies in the profound cultural connotation involved in it. Big Breasts and Wide Hips, one of the representative works of Mo Yan, is such a typical novel that rich in culture- loaded words, so taking this English version as the research example gives practical significance to the thesis.Translatability and untranslatability has always been an important research issue in translation studies. Translatability refers to the degree of possibility of translation. Traditionally, translation research scholars generally study the translatability issue from two perspectives, namely the universalist one and monadist one. Supporters of the universalist approach insist that the existence of linguistic universals ensure translatability. While the supporters of the monadist approach claim that each language, as an individual system, has its own immeasurable individuality, which determines the untranslatability of language. O n one hand, with the deepening of the cross-cultural communication, the increasing cultural blending determines the translatability of language; on the other hand, as a result of the existence of heterogeneity, the untranslatability of language objectively exists. Therefore, the translatability and untranslatability are not always unchangeable; with the development of the society and language, untranslatability will be continually converted into translatability.Taken Goldblatt‘s English version of Big Breasts and Wide Hips as an examine example, the thesis explores the issue of translatability of culture- loaded words. Verifying whether culture- loaded words can be translated and study how to reduce the translatability limitation are the main purposes of the study. According to Hu Kaibao‘s classification, culture-loaded word is classified as: 1) C ulture-specific words(no equivalents); 2) Allusions, idioms, common sayings and proverbs; 3) Words with different associative meanings or arousing dissimilar emotional feelings in which the cultural elements embedded are covert. In this thesis, the first two chapters put forward the definition of translatability and the theoretical basis, introduces the definition and classification of culture- loaded words and information about the English version. Chapter three presents the theoretical framework of the study, discusses the limitation issue of translatability, gives the adjustment mechanism and executes plan of limitation of translatability, which is based on Nida‘s equivalence theory, analyzes how to reduce the limitation of translatability from detailed translation method analysis. C hapter four is the analysis and discussion part. First of all, classify the culture-loaded words in the novel. Then based on the analysis of translatability limitation of Liu Miqing, the limitation in translating culture- loaded words is summarized. At last, the detailed translation methods are discussed and analyzed. To evaluate the translation effect, two criteria based on equivalence theory are put forward: 1) translation version should be emphasized on the combination of both content and form and the content is given priority. 2) the reaction of TL readers should be in accord with SL readers as much as possible. The research results show that in the six translation methods, literal translation and explanation methods are most effective and workable; substitution and liberal translation methods are relatively effective; pure transliteration is workable on transmitting the literal information; omission has no effect in adjusting the limitation of translatability.