A Study Of Foreignization And Domestication In Translating Culture-specific Items In Tanxiang Xing

Tanxiang Xing is one of the masterpieces of Mo Yan,the first Chinese writer who has won the Nobel Prize in literature.The translation of abundant culture-specific items(CSIs)in Mo Yan's works has posed huge challenges to the translators.Howard Goldblatt,an American sinologist and the exclusive translator of Mo Yan's works,has shown particular consideration to the cultural differences reflected in the CSIs when he undertook the task of translating Tanxiang Xing into its English version:Sandalwood Death.When translating the CSIs in Mo Yan's Tanxiang Xing,Goldblatt is found to employ both foreignization and domestication as two major translation strategies.Functionally,domestication is target language-oriented,with the purpose of making CSIs easy to understand or acceptable by the target readers while foreignization is source language-oriented with the purpose of preserving the exotic flavor or characteristics of the original texts.Due to the function and different targets,the translator needs to find a way of applying these two strategies properly so that an effective culture communication and transmission can be made smoothly.The CSIs in Tanxiang Xing can be classified into six categories.Apart from CSIs of ecology,the proportion of foreignization is higher than that of domestication on the translation of all the other categories of CSIs.The most frequently used translation methods for CSIs in Sandalwood Death are literal translation,free translation and transliteration.In the translation of subcategories of CSIs such as clothing,building,musical instrument,daily necessity,name,name of place,time expression,weight and measure,historical and mythological figure,religious factor,folk adage and two-part allegorical saying,Goldblatt tends to employ foreignization strategy to keep the Chinese characteristics in the source text.While in the translating of subcategories of CSIs such as food and drink,social identity,form of address,punishment,four-character idiom,euphemism,metonymy and ecology,domestication strategy has been given priority for the purpose of eliminating possible reading confusions caused by the culture asymmetry.In general,Goldblatt's translation of CSIs in Tanxiang Xing is mainly guided by the foreignization strategy,with domestication strategy as supplementary,which means they are not functionally exclusive but serve for different translation purposes.In the process of applying these two strategies,Goldblatt has achieved the effective culture communication and transmission in spite of the fact that some minor mistakes were made due to his misunderstanding of some CSIs.This thesis aims to give a more objective and integrated account of Goldblatt's translation based on the study of all CSIs in Tanxiang Xing and make a case analysis of his application of domestication and foreignization strategies,hoping to shed light on the future studies about CSIs translation in Chinese literary works.