Howard Goldblatt’s Domestication And Foreignization Of Culture-loaded Expressions In Red Sorghum

Culture-loaded expressions refer to the expressions which have no counterparts in another language or those which can find supposed counterparts in another language but with different connotations. As a special group of words, culture-loaded expressions reflect the unique culture of one country or one people. They are an integral part of culture with distinctive historicity and regionalism, serving as an indispensable carrier and a main medium of culture. Due to their importance, translation of culture-loaded expressions shoulders great responsibilities of culture dissemination. However, there may be two undesirable tendencies: one is that the translated version may preserve the original flavor of the source-language culture at the cost of acceptability among the target-language readers and the other is that it may cater to the foreign readers with the loss of the original flavor of the source-language culture. Neither of these two tendencies benefits culture spreading. Only when the translation keeps a proper balance between retaining the original flavor and catering to the foreign readers can the source-language culture be most effectively spread. Therefore, translation of culture-loaded expressions deserves adequate attention in the translation circle.In the translation of these culture-loaded expressions, translators can adopt either domestication or foreignization. It was the American scholar Lawrence Venuti who first put forward the concept of domestication and foreignization. The former is a translation strategy which refers to rendering the foreign literature with local expressions to serve domestic readers and bringing the author and foreign values to them; the latter is a translation strategy which refers to manifesting cultural differences in foreign countries, retaining the original flavor and bringing domestic readers closer to foreign cultures. Domestication and foreignization are two main translation strategies. But there is no fixed standard on how to use them.Red Sorghum, a piece of work written by the Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan, is imbued with culture-loaded expressions. Since the English version translated by Howard Goldblatt was published in 1993, it has been popular with English readers as one of the bestsellers of Chinese novels in the United States.According to Nida’s classification of culture into five categories, the author divides culture-loaded expressions into ecological culture-loaded expressions, material culture-loaded expressions, social culture-loaded expressions, religious culture-loaded expressions and linguistic culture-loaded expressions. Based on the theory of domestication and foreignization, the author finds out the translation strategies and approaches adopted by Howard Goldblatt through collecting and analyzing data. In his translation, Howard Goldblatt uses both domestication and foreignization, but the latter is used preferably whenever the meanings of the source language can be understood word for word. In the translation of ecological culture-loaded expressions, social culture-loaded expressions and religious culture-loaded expressions, the foreignization strategy is used frequently; in the translation of linguistic culture-loaded expressions, the domestication strategy becomes dominant; in the translation of material culture-loaded expressions, the combination of domestication and foreignization is employed. Goldblatt applies the translation strategies of domestication and foreignization by using some typical translation approaches, such as literal translation, free translation, the combination of literal translation and free translation, transliteration and substitution. Howard Goldblatt adopts literal translation when the culture revealed by the culture-loaded expressions is already familiar or known to the target-language readers or can be understood literally through the vivid figurative description of the source language; he adopts free translation when culture-loaded expressions which have no counterparts in English cannot be figured out word for word; he combines literal translation and free translation when parts of the culture-loaded expressions needs to be kept and the rest has to be altered. Transliteration is used in translation of Chinese names and substitution is used when a Chinese culture-loaded expression cannot be understood literally, but an English expression can be found with equivalent or similar meaning. On the whole, Howard Goldblatt’s translation of culture-loaded expressions in Red Sorghum is faithful to the source text and caters to the target-language readers. The analysis of Howard Goldblatt’s translation strategies and approaches in the translation of culture-loaded expressions is intended to offer practical and theoretical guidance to the translation of culture-loaded expressions in the future.