Interpretation And Translation Of Culture-Specific Items

Filling in the culture gap between source language and target language has always been the challenge confronted by translato rs and the research focus of theorists Chinese classical dance,as part of traditional culture,is deeply rooted in China’s historical and cultural background.Numerous culture-specific items(CSI)contained in this field bring obstacles to the translation from Chinese to English.Analysis and Appreciation of Chinese Classical Dance is a monograph introducing the historical origins,development,categories and characteristics of Chinese classical dance and the analysis of representative choreographic works.The biggest challenge in its translation is how to render the CSIs in the source text.Therefore,this report will focus on the classification and translation strategies of culture-specific items.This report is a case study on Chinese-English Translation of Excerpts from Analysis and Appreciation of Chinese Classical Dance.According to the definition and classification method raised by Aixela,the author divides 128 CSIs in the excerpts into 8 categories and summarizes eight strategies in translation:orthographic adaptation,linguistic(non-cultural)translation,extratextual gloss,intratextual gloss,limited universalization,absolute universalization,deletion,which are under the instruction of Aixela,and corresponding expressions of a third language,a supplement added by the author.Definitions,parameters affecting the choice of strategies,applicability in Chinese-English translation and case analyses are given under each strategy,and quantitative analysis is provided to explore the suitable strategy for each type of CSIs.The author drew the conclusion that Aixela’s method is instructive in C-E translation while a concrete analysis of concrete situations is still necessary.