A Study Of Cultural Image Translation Of Alai's King Gesar From The Perspective Of Cross-cultural Communication

Under the background of "going out" of Chinese culture,more and more excellent literary works are translated and introduced overseas.Translation plays a significant role in cultural communication.It is a transformation between two different languages.Moreover,it is also a collision between two different cultures.Cultural image contains rich cultural connotation,so the translation of cultural image has a significant impact on cultural communication.King Gesar,a novel by Tibetan writer Alai,is one of a series of international "retelling myths" launched by Canongate Books.Howard Goldblatt,an American Sinologist,translated it into English and published it in 2013.In King Gesar,Alai adopts a double clue narrative mode.One is about Gesar's subduing demons and expedition process.The other is the wandering experience of Jigmed,a storyteller to sing the story of Gesar,looking for the traces left by Gesar.The book contains rich Chinese culture,especially profound Tibetan culture.Its English translation has become an important way for English readers to understand Chinese culture,especially Tibetan traditional culture.Taking the translation of King Gesar by Howard Goldblatt as the research object,the paper,on the basis of Eugene Nida's classification standard of culture,divides 482 cultural images in King Gesar into five categories,namely,ecological cultural image,material cultural image,social cultural image,religious cultural image and linguistic cultural image.Based on it,the paper analyzes the translation of cultural images in King Gesar from the perspective of cross-cultural communication,and explores whether the translation strategies and methods applied by Howard Goldblatt can fully reflect the connotation of cultural images in the original text.The paper consists of six chapters.The first chapter starts from the research background,emphasizes the purpose and significance of this research,puts forward research questions and research methods,and finally lists the outline of the paper.The second chapter first summarizes the current situation of the studies of cultural image translation,and then sorts out the existing studies of King Gesar in recent years,pointing out the differences between this study and previous studies.Chapter three first introduces the two terms of "culture" and "cross-cultural communication",then analyzes two translation strategies of domestication and foreignization proposed by Venuti,pointing out that domestication and foreignization are not antagonistic,but complementary.Chapter four divides the cultural images in King Gesar into five categories,and classifies the cultural images in Alai's novel and the corresponding translation in Howard Goldblatt's translation.Chapter five makes a detailed analysis of the cultural images in the translation from the perspective of cross-cultural communication,and discusses whether the translation strategies and methods applied by Howard Goldblatt can fully reflect the connotation of cultural images in the original text.Chapter six tries to summarize the translation strategies of "domestication" and " foreignization" and some translation methods adopted by Howard Goldblatt in translating cultural images from the perspective of cross-cultural communication.According to the case analysis,three suggestions,including the strategy of "thick translation",the mode of "Sino-foreign cooperation" and the enhancement of cultural confidence among Chinese translators,are put forward to continuously strengthen the soft power of Chinese culture.It is found that Howard Goldblatt,in The Song of King Gesar,embodies the connotation of some cultural images in the original text,but there are also a lot of phenomena that the connotation of cultural images is distorted in the translation.Howard Goldblatt adopts the translation strategy of domestication primarily and foreignization supplementarily.Translation methods mainly applied by him,such as transliteration,transliteration plus annotation,literal translation and literal translation plus annotation,are conducive to the spread of Chinese cultural connotation.However,in some cases,translation methods utilized by him,such as transliteration,literal translation,free translation,substitution and omission,result in the connotation distortions of original cultural images.This paper focuses on the case of the connotation distortions of original cultural images in Howard Goldblatt's translation and points out that it is advisable to adopt "thick translation" strategy and the translation mode of "Sino-foreign cooperation" and to continuously help the Chinese translators improve their national cultural self-confidence,in order to present the connotation of Chinese culture,especially Tibetan culture.By this way can translators help foreign readers reduce reading barriers and spread Chinese culture to the world,so as to enhance the soft power of Chinese culture.