Strategies On Translating Cultural Information Items In Fiction

Since the cultural turn in translation studies proposed by Andre Lefevere and Susan Bassnett emerged in the 1990s, translation studies have gone beyond the formalism and linguistic studies. The emphasis then is to some extent transferred to the broader contexts like history, society, culture etc. Literary works, especially novels, are reflection of certain culture under certain period of time. Characters and settings of novel can be seen as best representatives of certain culture that the work is built on.This thesis aims to study the translation process and strategy of cultural information items through the translation of two short stories from the collection Cross Channel. The collection is one of the masterpieces by Julian Barnes on English-French culture and people. One of the distinct features of the fiction is the richness of cultural information items that influence the understanding of non-native speakers. Cultural information items are referred to as cultural gaps that create different understandings for native and non-native readers. The author concludes that the translation process of cultural information items can be divided into two stages. One is the analysis stage which can apply the context theory in an attempt to analyze the text from both textual factors like the context, personal characters and factors beyond the text like the cultural and historical background as well as the writing style of the author. The other is the translation stage that employs some of the eleven strategies put forward by Aixela.This thesis contributes to the academia in the way that it notices the richer meaning and function of cultural information items in fiction translation that goes beyond the pure semantic level.