3.4 The Translation Strategy of Historical Allusion Cultural-loaded
Words..15
3.5 The Translation Strategy of Myths and Legends Cultural-loaded
Words..16
Chapter Four Factors Influencing the Translation of Cultural-loaded Words.19
4.1 The Existence of Culture Vacancy Phenomenon Between China and The Western Countries..19
4.2 Different Ways of Thinking Between China and The Western
Countries..19
4.3 The Accomplishments of Translators.20
Chapter Five Conclusion.22
5.1 Major Findings.22
5.2 Limitation and Recommendation.22
Bibliography21
On Howard Goldblatt's Translation Strategies of Cultural-Loaded Words---A Case Study of Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out
Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research Background
Nowadays, cultural communication is becoming increasingly frequent in the world. China, as a big country, is getting more and more attention from the world. China also attaches great importance to cultural communication, which plays a significant role in China’s external exchange. All countries have their own unique historical and cultural background. The spread of Chinese culture depends largely on the translation. Every country has its own culture, so how to keep its cultural elements during the translation process depends largely on the translation of cultural-loaded words, which contain the particular customs, culture, and history of the country. As we all know, China has a long history of more than 5000 years, and it has rich cultural and historical heritage which are famous all over the world. Cultural-loaded words play an important role in Chinese history and culture. Cultural-loaded words, a symbol of China, including ancient cultural-loaded words and modern ones, have distinctive Chinese characteristics. Foreign people, who do not know a lot about Chinese history and culture, will find it difficult to understand the history, culture, geography, and humor which are embodied in cultural-loaded words. With China's rapid development and reform and opening-up, Chinese culture is also getting more and more attention all over the world. To promote Chinese communication with foreign countries, more attention should be paid to the translation of Chinese cultural-loaded words. Certainly, as Chinese, we are familiar with these cultural-loaded words. However, foreign readers may be puzzled about them . Therefore, the translation of cultural-loaded words is what we should focus on.
1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Research
Language is a reflection of a nation's ecological regions, culture, religion, and customs. Cultural-loaded words are featured with strong national colors and distinctive cultural identity. National literary works always contain a large number of cultural-loaded words. The culture of China is different from the cultures of western countries, so when the translators translating cultural-loaded words, they find it difficult to find out some existing words or corresponding expressions in the target language. Manttari defined translation as “a complex action designed to achieve a particular purpose” (Nord, 2001, p. 13). In order to achieve the goal of promoting cultural communication, the translators should accurately understand the meanings of the cultural-loaded words and preserve the original meanings of the cultural-loaded words in the process of translation.
Mo Yan is a world-famous Chinese writer. Life and Death are Wearing Me Out is one of his masterpieces. There are lots of cultural-loaded words in this novel. In the English vision translated by Howard Goldblatt , these cultural-loaded words were translated properly. The translation strategies Goldblatt chose are various. In his translation,on the one hand,he did his best to translate cultural-loaded words in accordance with the target language. On the other hand, he retained the original cultural flavor in some places to make the target readers more interested in and have a feeling of freshness of the translated version.Through the study of translation strategies that Goldblatt chose in the translation of cultural-loaded words in the novel’s English version,we can find out what kind of translation strategies translators should choose so that the target readers can understand the English version better and know more about Chinese culture.