A Study Of The Translation Of Cultural Factors In Tales Of Hulan River From The Perspective Of Cultural Schema Theory

With the continuous development of translation studies and the upsurge of the cultural school,researches on translation have been transformed from the stress on language to that on culture,which is particularly reflected in the translation of literary works.In the trend of "cultural turn",translating activity is not only a conversion between different languages,but also a cross-cultural communicative behavior.When readers read literary works of other countries,they not only want to acquire new experiences,but also hope to know more about alien culture,so as to exchange with the writer on the spiritual level.As the part with unique ethical characteristics and cultural heritage in language,cultural factor become indispensable in translation practice and translation theoretical researches.Hulanhe Zhuan is a representative work of woman writer Xiao Hong.There are a large number of cultural factors with distinctive Chinese characteristics in the novel.It was translated by American sinologist Howard Goldblatt in 1970s.The unique English version is studied from the perspective of cultural schema theory in the thesis.The author first classifies the cultural factors in Tales of Hulan River into five categories:concrete thing,social custom,local saying,religious culture and color term,then discusses them from four aspects:coincidence of cultural schema,overlap of cultural schema,default of cultural schema and opposite of cultural schema.Through the analysis,the author finds that in the process of translation,the translator activates,adjusts cultural schemata which are already in target-readers' minds or even creates new cultural schemata for them by various translating strategies.These strategies include literal translation,free translation,transliteration,literal translation with notes,transliteration with notes and so on.Moreover,the deeper understanding the translator has towards the two cultures and the more corresponding the cultural schemata are,the more accurate communication the translation of cultural factors can realize at both the linguistic level and cultural level.Positive effects of cultural schema theory on translation thus are proved.The author also summarizes translation strategies of cultural factors in different cultural schema condition and that of different categories of cultural factors.Tentative suggestions are put forward.The objective of the research is to serve as a reference for translation of Chinese classical literary works,especially those with abundant cultural factors.