从文化差异的角度浅谈英汉翻译中的不可译现象(2)

菜单

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

With the increasing development of the cultural communication between China and the western world，translation is no more the simple conversion between the two languages．It has been playing an important role in culture communication．Both Chinese and English are blessed with very deep-rooted cultures. Therefore，the successful communication can only be achieved through mutual understanding of the two different cultures. However, untranslatability is unavoidable in Chinese-English translation because of the cultural vacancy and incomprehension of the TL culture. We should take the culture difference into consideration to figure out the untranslatability in Chinese-English translation.

When untranslatability is encountered by the translator, the issue of translatability of the text comes into being. Catford distinguishes two types of untranslatability, which he terms as linguistic and cultural. At the linguistic level, untranslatability occurs when there is no lexical or syntactical substitute in the TL for an SL item. Linguistic untranslatability, he argued, is due to differences between the SL and the TL, whereas cultural untranslatability is due to the absence in the TL culture of a relevant feature for the SL text. (Bassnett, 2010: 37) This paper will focus on the culture difference which leads to the untranslatability between SL and TL in Chinese-English translation. Many cases are cited to prove the causes of untranslatability from the perspective of culture difference. In addition, some compensation strategies are proposed as well.

The thesis is composed of six parts. Part one is the introduction. Part two is the literature review about cultural translation and untranslatability. Part three introduces some factors leading to culture difference, including different regions, different customs, different religion, different history and different modes of thinking. And in the second part from bottom, some compensation strategies like dynamic equivalence, transliteration, paraphrase, adaptation and the use of footnote will be proposed for the purpose of tackling the issue of untranslatability. Lastly，Part six is the conclusion of the thesis.

2. Literature Review

Eugene A. Nida, a pioneer figure in translation and linguistics, argued that “Translation is a conversion of two cultures. It is more important to be familiar with two kinds of cultures than be good at two different languages. Words become meaningful only under its effective cultural background." Yan Fu put forwards his ‘faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance’ translation theory in order to find reliable basis for his translation and make his translation more acceptable.

2.1 The Definition of Culture

Culture referred exclusively to the humanist ideal of what was considered ‘civilized’ in a developed society until the birth of anthropology. The conception of culture was firstly defined in 1871 by E.B. Taylor and he provided the first deeper understanding of the feature of culture. A culture is a combination of beliefs, habits and behaviors which are held in common by people who live in a particular environment. In a word, culture includes both material things which can be seen as literary works and spiritual ones like beliefs and values.

In translation studies, most theorists and practitioners would tacitly accept that there is a form of ‘cultural filter’ involved in the translation process. (Baker, 2010: 70)

2.2 The Definition of Cultural Translation

The term ‘cultural translation’ is used in many different contexts. In some way, it is a metaphor that radically questions translation’s traditional parameters, but a narrower use of the term refers to the practices of literary translation that mediate cultural difference, try to convey extensive cultural background, and represent another culture via translation. Cultural translation raises complex technical issues: how to deal with features like dialect and heteroglossia, literary allusions, culturally specific items such as food or architecture, or other culture differences in the assumed context. (Baker, 2010: 67)源[自*751^`论\文"网·www.751com.cn/