Culture and Translation

1、文 化 与 翻 译culture and translationcontentsabstract-11. history of guihua and yihua-22. different referents for the two pairs of concepts-23. what is a good translation-44. culture and language-55. culture and translation-56influence of culture on translation-66.1 the transition of idioms -66.2 the tra

2、nslation of chinese 4-character phrase-76.3 the translation of color words -86.4 the translation of poems -96.5 the translation of autochthonal name-107. overcome cultural barriers-118. conclusion-12references-13culture and translation摘 要：本论文的作者希望通过大量的实例说明应把文化学习作为翻译学习的一部分。因为现在大部分的翻译理论受到语言转换理论的限制，文化因

3、素只是稍微涉及到。在结构主义出现之后，与其他原则相比，语言学的确推动了翻译的发展，但我们应该进一步推动文化翻译的发展，同时认识到归化和异化都有其优点，以此来保护我国文化，同时批判的看待外国文化。关键词：文化； 翻译； 归化； 异化abstract: in this paper the writer hopes to put an emphasis on cultural translation through lots of practical examples, and to address the need for incorporating culture as part of tran

4、slation studies. for the majority of the translation theories used within the strict disciplinary limits themselves in dealing with linguistic transfers, touching only the borders of cultural concerns. linguistics itself has contributed much to studies in other disciplines after the advent of struct

5、uralism. we should do more to improve the cultural translation, and realize that guihua and yihua have their advantages, so as to protect our native culture and to absorb foreign culture critically.key words: culture；translation；guihua；yihuaculture and translation1. history of guihua and yihuaa hist

6、orical review shows that lu xun used the term guihua (assimilation or domestication ) in talking about translation as early as 1935. and the word yihua is already included in dictionary of modern chinese in 1978 and reprinted in 1991. this means that the two terms are not recent loan words from the

7、west. then what is the english for yihua/guihua when they are used in chinese translation discussions.since chinese translation scholars were already talking about guihua/yihua before venuti (1995) and they used different english terms, we can conclude that, though both assimilation/alienation and d

8、omestication/foreignization are employed as the english renderings for the chinese guihua/yihua and people in recent discussions tend to replace the former with the latter, early chinese discussions were not under the direct influence of venuti.venuti said that domesticating strategies have been imp

9、lemented at least since ancient rome, when translation was a kind of conquest, and translators into latin not only deleted culturally specific markers but also added allusions to roman culture and replaced the names of greek poets with those of their own, passing the translation off as a text origin

10、ally written in latin. a foreignizing strategy in translation was first formulated in the german culture in the early 19th century by friedrich schleiermacher 1. it has recently been revived in the french cultural scene characterized by postmodern developments in philosophy, literary criticism, psyc

11、hoanalysis, and social theory that have come to be known as“poststruturalism”11.in short, foreignization and domestication are venutis coinages based on his investigation of western translation history and theories. the chinese debated over yihua and guihua are the extension of the literal/free disc

12、ussions in the 1920s-30s. guihua is a traditional chinese term, and yihua is borrowed from the western philosophy. they are not loan words from lawrence venuti.2. different referents for the two pairs of conceptsearly discussions and a large percentage of present-day talks about yihua/guihua were no

13、t very different from those about literal/free translation. lu xun, the first one to talk about guihua in translation, did not define the term, but gave the example of a japanese translator whose translation was close to paraphrase7. liu yingkai, the initiator of the chinese guihua/yihua debate sinc

14、e the 1990s, said that guihua means changing the“guest” source language into idiomatic “host” language so that the translation look familiar and sound fluent, without any feeling of strangeness. it is the extreme form of free translation, including the over-use of chinese idioms and archaic chinese

15、expressions, of paraphrasing source cultural images, replacement of the source language idioms with chinese substitutes, and unjustified change of no metaphors into metaphors. to sun zili 9, guihua refers to “the change form idiomatic source language to idiomatic target language” while yihua means “

16、adoption of new words and expressions from the pordign works.” the definition of liu and sun are not very different from how people understand literal/free translation. and zhu zhuyu13 claims explicitly that “literal translation generally belongs to foreignizing and free translation may be said to b

17、e domesticating.” in recent discussions, some people say that guihua/yihua involve cultural treatment while, literal/free translation, linguistic factors alone. but it may be difficult to say that translating with the latter methods does not involve cultural problems.for venuti 10, the domesticating

18、 method is “an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target language cultural values, bringing the author back home.” it is closely related to fluent translation, which is written in current, widely used and standard english. it is immediately recognizable and intelligible, “familiarized” an

19、d domesticated. in short, standard target language rather than variation is used.foreignizing translation practices entail the choice of a foreign text and the invention of translation disco uses. a foreignizing translator can use “a discursive strategy that deviates from the prevailing hierarchy of

20、 dominant discourses (e.g. dense archaism), but also by choosing to translate a text that challenges the contemporary canon of foreign literature in the target language”. venuti cites pound, newman and himself as examples of foreignizing translators. archaism seems to a major feature of this strateg

21、y.venutis concepts of domestication and fluent translation are similar to chinese concept of guihua, but foreignization and strangeness obviously differ widely from yihua.first, yihua refers to faithfulness through retention of the linguistic and cultural features of the source texts, while for venu

22、ti, unfaithfulness to the source text is also a kind of foreignization. for example, he clamed that his own foreignizing english version of de angeliss poem has not only challenged the dominant aesthetic in the anglo-american culture, but has also deviated from the italian source text.second, yihua

23、involves respect for the source cultures in translation, while venuti does not advocate indiscriminate value. to him, the foreign text is privileged in a foreignizing translation only insofar as it enables a disruption of target language cultural codes, so that its value is always strategic, dependi

24、ng on the cultural formation into which it is translated.” hence, close translation is foreignizing only because its approximation of the foreign text entails deviating from dominant domestic values”. this seems to contradict the common chinese assumption that foreignization is always a means of res

25、pecting the cultural others.third, guihua/yihua refer to specific translation methods only, whereas domestication/ foreignization involve the careful selection of texts to be translated as well. foreignizing translators chooses texts that “challenge the contemporary canon of foreign literature in th

26、e target language,” and “the choice of a foreign text for translation can be just as foreignzing in its impact on the target language culture as the invention of a discursive strategy”.lastly, yihua means close adherence to the linguistic and cultural features of the source texts alone. foreignizati

27、on also involves use of non-standard target language, ad is further explained but venuti in his email to a chinese postgraduate student name ma jia (eddie) on december 2,2002. in his letter, venuti said that foreignization can take a number of different forms. close adherence to the foreign text is

28、one, and retaining cultural markers is another. the most decisive way, however, may well be producing a bariaton on the current standard dialect of the receiving language. variations here mean regional and social dialects, archaism, jargons and technical terminologies, stylistic innovations and neol

29、ogisms, literary figures like metaphors. it can also be achieved through the choice of a foreign text for translation translated fluently or in the current standard dialect. in other words, for venuti, foreignization means selecting a foreign text that is marginal in the target culture, but translat

30、ing it in a fluent way (similar to guihua) ; or choosing a foreign text that is canonical in the target culture, but translating it with marginal discourse marginal discourse here includes adherence to source language form and retention of source cultural elements (similar to yihua ) as well as the

31、use of non-standard target language. the opposite is true of domestication.the above comparison reveals that domestication/foreignization focused on whether the translation deviates from and challenges the target culture values, while guihua and yihua concentrate on retention/deletion of the source

32、language/culture features. the former includes the selection of the text to be translated while the latter refers to the transnational activity. the two of terms overlap, but are not the same.3. what is a good translation?translation is, in fact, a converting process. theoretically, a good translati

33、on should give its reader the same conception as what a native reader gets from the original.nida 7 remarked that how to determine a good translation is the response of the receptor to the translated message, and this message must then be compared with the way in which the original receptors presuma

34、bly reacted to the message when it was given in its original setting. jakobson 8 held the view that translation does not just mean the change of symbols into another language, but it is a process of information substitution. the task of a translator is to translate the information he receives into s

35、ymbols which he will send out.catford 2 explained that in translation there is no meaning equivalence, but just the signifier equivalence. because of the differences between the original language and the target language, there exists the translation equivalence 11 limitedness. this limitedness is no

36、t only manifested in the meaning of words, grammatical features, but also manifested in cultural differences more seriously.4. culture and languageperhaps culture is one of the most difficult terms to define. different people in accordance with their different specialties have given different defini

37、tions. eshleman says “the term culture means different things to different people.” in minds of many people, it is associated with such activities as attending the opera, listening to classical music and going to art museums. as used by sociologists and cultural anthropologists, however culture has

38、a different meaning. to sociologists, a culture is a system of ideas, values, beliefs, knowledge, norms, customs and technology shared by almost everyone in a particular society. a culture is a societies system of common heritage and each of us has culture. we express our culture continuously in our

39、 dress, food, work, language and other activities. what eshleman says gives a definition of culture. to put it simply, culture means the total way of life of a people.language does not develop in empty space 7. language is a part of culture, perhaps best defined as “the totality of beliefs and pract

40、ice of a society”. these beliefs may be further described as consisting of knowledge, patterns of reasoning, and sets of values. a language, therefore, is both a part of culture and a medium through which the other parts of culture are expressed 4. this makes language the distinctive feature of huma

41、n society, something in which immigration officials put more trust than in documentation. perhaps can be readily falsified, but not accents. but language is also indispensable for the functioning of a culture and for transmitting it to succeeding generations. that is to say, language plays a very im

42、portant role in culture. without language, culture would not be possible. on the other hand, language is influenced and shaped by culture. language cannot be existed without culture. therefore, language and culture are inseparable. 5. culture and translationtranslation means intercultural communicat

43、ion by means of which one culture can be transmitted into another, so the cultural special characteristics unavoidably influence translation. the equivalence limitedness of a translation.different language is bound to adopt different meaningful devices to show their cultures in order to reflect thei

44、r national consciousness and cultural tradition. the research of the cultural features embodies rich contents. according to the research of some scholars, the cultural features of language include:a.ecology,b.material culturec.social cultured.religious culturee.linguistic culture 7take english and c

45、hinese for example: in britain, the weather changes a lot, and so people have a special feeling for weather. “lovely day, isnt it?” becomes the most convenient and safe greeting. in china, the problem of daily bread has been the subject people have been concerned with. in western culture, there are

46、many gods, such as jesus, apollo, jupiter, while in china, we have “盘古”，“嫦娥”， etc. english people would say “as poor as a church mouse”, but chinese we have “穷的像叫化子”. thus, in translation, we should put more emphasis on the cultural factors in language.in the following, there are some examples to su

47、pport the influence of culture on translation and the translation between english and chinese will be focused on.6influence of culture on translation6.1 the transition of idioms idiom is considered as the special cultural image. its translation requires not only to convey the meaning of the original

48、 as much as possible but also to keep the national features.in english and chinese, there are some idioms, which are of the same grammatical forms and of the more or less same meaning. in this case, these idioms in the target language can be borrowed. for example:two heads are better than one. 三个臭皮匠

49、，胜过诸葛亮。6one swallow does not make a summer 一花独放不是春。among the blind the one two eyed man is king.山中无老虎，猴子称霸王。some idioms cannot find their equivalent expressions in target language. in this case, we should understand the culture they are involved in, and reconstruct the true meanings they carry faith

50、fully. for example:“the children of the bride chamber”, which is from the testament. it means “the guests at the wedding ceremony” or “the friends of the bridegroom”, but not “the children of the house of the man who marries the woman”. so it should be translated into “婚礼上的宾客” or “新郎的朋友” but not “新郎

51、房间里的孩子”。6.2 the translation of chinese 4-character phrasethe idiom is the unique regular expression in the using process. this text discusses idioms which are broad sense, including idiom, proverb, twopart allegorical saying, allusion, etc. english-chinese bilingual history is long, including a larg

52、e amount of idioms. they are implicit, humor, or serious, refined. not only precise and to the point, but also the image is vivid, very witty. it gives somebody a kind of beautiful enjoyment because of geography, history, religious belief, the difference in custom, lives, etc .the english-chinese id

53、iom is bearing the weight of the peoples national culture character and culture information.97% chinese idioms are in the form of 4-character phrases because of their beautifulness in sound, parallel in form, concise and comprehensive in meaning. its a tendency that more and more 4-character phrases

54、 are used in writing and translation of chinese 3.sometimes there are set-phrases that have equivalent meaning in english. for example: a drop in the ocean 沧海一粟 burn ones boats 破釜沉舟 smell of the baby 乳臭未干 not to have a bean 囊空如洗sometimes there are no equivalent set-phrases in english so a right expr

55、ession should be chosen by a translator. for example: misery loves company. 同病相怜 the truth comes out. 真相大白 the storm clouds gathered darkly. 乌云密布 there are cultural differences between chinese and english because of different beliefs, religions, custom and so on. so we should pay much attention to this factor in translating culture-loaded components into 4-character phrases. as strong as a horse 健壮如牛 as clear as daylight 洞若观火 as clear as the sun at midday 昭然若揭 bleed like a pig 血流如注 as dumb as an oyster 守口如瓶 often a translation from english to chinese with approp