English-to-Chinese Translation Of Culture-Specific Items Under The Guidance Of Aixéla’s Translation Strategies ——A Case Study Of The Dead Are Arising:The Life Of Malcolm X

Based on the English-to-Chinese translation of Chapters 1 and 5 of The Dead Are Arising:The Life of Malcolm X,this report analyzes the translation of culture-specific items（CSIs）under the guidance of Aixé1a’s translation strategies.Written by the Pulitzer winner Les Payne,this historical biography of Malcolm X is based on over 100-hour interviews,including interviews with Malcolm’s family,classmates,street youngsters,sheriff,and cellmates.In this biography,there are many phrases with the abundant cultural and racial history that may be confusing to the Chinese reader.In particular,the translation of culture-specific items is a major difficulty that cannot be solved by literal translation.Facing this challenge,the translator employed Aixela’s translation strategies to translate CSIs,and selected different strategies,such as footnote,orthographic adaptation,and naturalization,according to the importance and difficulty of culture-specific items.This report aims to figure out translation methods of culture-specific items and give a detailed analysis through the case study.The translator has selected six translation strategies from Aixela’s translation strategies for CSIs,including extratextual gloss,intratextual gloss,repetition,orthographic adaptation,absolute universalization,and naturalization.The translator has the following findings through translation and analysis.First,due to the over-specific classification of CSI translation strategies,the translator selects six translation strategies according to the actual application in analyzing cases,and thus making the analysis more logically connected.Second,six translation strategies of CSI sometimes should be used in combination,such as absolute universalization plus extratextual gloss,orthographic adaptation plus extratextual gloss,and repetition plus extratextual gloss.Besides,it can be seen that extratextual gloss is the most frequently used strategy,usually in the form of footnote or bracket.Third,as for the standards for using intratextual,extratextual gloss,the translator should adopt gloss according to the importance and difficulty of CSIs themselves.