Compensation And Translation Of Culture-loaded Words

In the process of translating literary works rich in culture-specific connotations and associations,semantic differences and cultural disparities frequently cause something to be lost.This may involve loss or distortion of information,pragmatic functions,cultural elements,aesthetic value,inspiration or entertaining functions,etc.Thus,translation compensation strategies play an essential role in making up for the lost semantic elements and communicative functions in the translating process.True Colors of Offialdom(???????),one of the four great condemnation novels of the late Qing Dynasty,is without question a literary masterpiece rich in Chinese cultural characteristics.Containing profound cultural connotations and drawing heavily upon allusions,puns,and other literary devices,it reveals the avariciousness and falsehood of officialdom of that time and presents a large number of ludicrous but yet thought-provoking scenes and characters.One remarkable lingua-cultural feature of this novel is its abundant use of culture-loaded terms.Thus,attempting to translate this novel,or part of it,into English presents a tough but rewarding challenge,as well as a pertinent platform for research on the application of translation compensation theory to adequate translation of culture-loaded words and expressions abundant in classical Chinese novels.Translation compensation has attracted considerable academic interest.Most studies on translation compensation focus on the loss of the source text effects,methods to compensate for the loss,and the employment of compensation strategies.This report attempts to discuss how varied compensation strategies,including amplification,generalization,specification and so on,can be effectively applied for the purpose of ensuring adequate translation of culture-loaded words without losing or distorting their social and cultural connotations and associations and to reproduce the effects of source text.Drawing upon some carefully chosen examples collected in the process of completing the translation practice project,this report draws the tentative conclusion that compensation strategies should be employed on both lexical and contextual levels for the objective of culture transmission.