A Study Of Cultural Imagery Transmission In The English Versions Of Lu Xun's Short Stories From The Perspective Of Medio-translatology

The translation of the literary works with Chinese characteristic cultural imagery is always considered as a tough question when disseminating Chinese traditional culture.Based on the critical concept of "creative treason" in Medio-translatology,this paper selects two representative English versions of Lu Xun's short Stories to make a study of cultural imagery translation,and tries to analyze the problems existing in transmission such as the distortion and the loss of cultural imagery through concrete examples.Through the comparative study of concrete examples,it is concluded that the distortion and the loss of cultural imagery are inevitable in translation mainly because of translator's creative treason.In transmitting the cultural imagery,translator's creative treason is fully reflected in his/her individualized translation methods,that is,domestication,foreignization,mistranslation and omission.The method of foreignization,which means the target language culture gives way to the original culture,can better transmit the cultural imagery in the cultural context;while adopting the means of domestication,mistranslation or omission,which is partly because of the lack of adequate understanding of the original culture,or of the lack of corresponding words or expressions in the target countries,or of taking into account the target readers' cultural acceptance habits,may cause the loss and the distortion of cultural imagery.Accordingly,with the perspective of Medio-translatology,the study on the transmission of cultural imagery in literary translation may contribute to further understanding of the relation between translation and culture,and of the translatability of cultural imagery,thereby helping translators better engage in translation practice.