A Comparative Study Of English Translations Of Culture-loaded Words In Jin Yong’s Novel The Deer And The Cauldron

Jin Yong’s novels with unique Chinese cultural elements are a very good platform to spread Chinese and wuxia cultures.Recently,their English translation has attracted overseas scholars’ and readers’ attention.However,the English translation is an arduous task for translators due to the abundant cultural elements in the novels,especially culture-loaded words.Many scholars have studied the English versions of The Deer and the Cauldron translated by Minford and other Jin Yong’s novels,discussing their translation strategies,but few of them use framing theory to analyze translation differences of culture-loaded words in different media and reasons for the differences.Therefore,this paper uses framing theory to compare translation differences of culture-loaded words in The Deer and the Cauldron.Two translation versions in different media are selected:the Minfold version published in books and FOX and HungtingX’s version on the website.Culture-loaded words in the first fourteen chapters are selected and quantitative and qualitative analyses are adopted to study translation differences and their reasons.Based on the above analyses,it can be concluded that the two translation versions preserve certain elements of the original narration,but in different media,there are still translation differences of culture-loaded words.FOX and HungtingX’s version underlines more cultural elements,and introduces more wuxia and Chinese cultures.The differences can be attributed to the facts that readers of the website version are wuxia fans with a deeper background knowledge;website translators also have positions to preserve or even underline unique cultural elements to serve the reader group;they also aim to satisfy readers’ need for learning more about wuxia and Chinese cultures.This paper discusses how different media can influence translators to deal with culture-loaded words,and reasons for translation differences.The study aims to contribute to the English translation of other Jin Yong’s books to promote wuxia and Chinese cultures overseas.