"Language And Culture-An Analysis Of The Misunderstanding Of The Core Concept Of "Middle Earth And Earth" In The Chinese Translation Of Tolkien's Fantasy Novels.

J.R.R.Tolkien is one of the most influential writer in 20th century Europe.Up till today his fantasy novels gradually influenced various spheres of modern western popular culture.Because of his extensive use of concepts derived from western cultural heritage as a source of inspiration,his works are being known as very difficult to translate.Chinese readers and translators cannot fully understand Tolkien's cultural background.Because of this reason,in order to allow Chinese readers and scholars better comprehend cultural background and content of Tolkien's novels,this dissertation first presents cultural background and sources of inspiration of Tolkien,including Christian and Scandinavian cultural background.This study utilizes three Chinese translations as a basis for further analysis.After careful reading author analyses some of important "culture-loaded words",afterwards he separately discusses its meaning from the perspective of western culture,he also discusses problems originating from misreading that appeared in Chinese translation and analyses its reasons.In the first part,I discussed two core concepts:"Elves" and "Orcs".Chinese editions provide respectively“?? "and“?? "as translations.Both concepts that appeared in Tolkien's novels,as presented by me,have deep cultural content derived from western culture.I also explained what cultural content both concepts have in Chinese culture.After explaining limitations of translating by "matching the meanings",I have chosen Christian dogma concerning creation of the world(creatio ex nihilo)that appeared in Middle-Earth as well as closely linked with it the problem of western understanding of Only God and His relation with man.In Chinese edition corresponding translation is "??”.The problem is that this translation does not have meaning of "out of nothing",thus it is the source of major misreading of original term.Lastly,I have discussed problem of death as presented in Tolkien's Middle-Earth.In Middle-Earth everything that happens after death,as decreed by "God" is not known by mortals sooner than after hearing His judgment.But "??" clearly denotes specific place for afterlife existence as understood by the Sect of Pure Land.Moreover,in contrast to Christian dogmas,this term implies possibility of salvation coming from inside.Thus,translator by using "??" as translation for "to die"also misses original meaning of term as used by Tolkien.Finally,in this study author recommends using of phonetic translations supplied with footnotes as translation method.With that we can better understand cultural world in novels by Tolkien.Moreover it is possible to avoid unnecessary misreading and bring real contribution to intercultural intercourse.