论文总字数：37277字

摘 要

随着全球化的发展，外宣成为世界了解中国及中国文化的重要媒介。而外宣材料的翻译则决定着中外交流的有效性。其翻译过程并不是单纯地转换语言，这个过程涉及到其他因素，中国特色词汇的翻译更是如此。《今日中国》作为对外宣传的主力，需要向外国读者展示一个真实的中国。因此，对于《今日中国》中国特色词汇翻译的深入研究能够帮助我们进一步学习外宣翻译的成功经验并发现现存问题。

本论文首先对国内外外宣翻译及中国特色词汇翻译研究进行综述，接着具体介绍了韦努蒂提出的归化异化理论及其相关研究，在这一理论视角之下，本论文以《今日中国》中中国特色词汇作为研究样本，分析并归类总结了所运用的翻译方法，如音译法、直译法、诠释法、意译法以及套译法。最终对全文进行归纳总结，并指出研究的局限和不足。

经过分析与总结，样本中中国特色词汇的翻译根据不同的文本、不同的翻译目的采取不同翻译方法。此外，归化与异化也并非相互对立，两者之间并无明确地界线。

关键词：中国特色词汇；外宣翻译；归化;异化；《今日中国》

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments i

Abstract ii

摘要 iii

Table of Contents iv

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the Study 1

1.2 Significance and Purpose of the Study 1

1.3 Layout of the Thesis 2

Chapter Two Literature Review 3

2.1 Translation for International Publicity 3

2.2 C-E Translation of Chinese Culture-loaded Words 4

Chapter Three Theoretic Framework 6

3.1 Domestication and Foreignization 6

3.2 Development and Formulation of the Theory 6

3.3. Controversy over Domestication and Foreignization 7

Chapter Four Sample Analysis 9

4.1 Introduction of China Today 9

4.2 Translation Strategies of Chinese Culture-loaded Words in China Today 10

4.2.1 Translation Strategies in the Light of Foreignization 10

4.2.2 Translation Strategies in the Light of Domestication 13

Chapter Five Conclusion 17

5.1 Major Findings 17

5.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies 18

References 19

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

With the development of globalization, it provides an excellent opportunity to make China and Chinese culture better known to the rest of the world. Language plays an indispensable role in international communication, and is in connection with the country’s soft power to a certain extent. Translation has great impact on international publicity, and even determines the effect of cultural exchange between China and other countries. What’s more, the translation of Chinese culture-loaded words involved in global communication is the priority among priorities. These words which are unique products of Chinese society reflect various fields and aspects of China. Accurate C-E translation of culture-loaded words is of great benefits to the dissemination of Chinese culture. However, with the rapid development of times, words with Chinese characteristics are constantly added and updated. Currently, some mistranslation and rigid translation become barriers in the process of introducing China to the world.

1.2 Significance and Purpose of the Study

During recent years, more and more scholars and researchers have been aware of the importance of translating Chinese culture-loaded words in international publicity. The study of its translation strategies is significant in China’s going out. Besides, the study takes China Today as sample, which is the representative periodical of international publicity and shows the social development and people’s lives in China from various aspects. Through extracting and reading culture-loaded words both in Chinese and English version, the essay analyses the text in the light of Venuti’s domesticating and foreignizing translation theory. Moreover, it is expected to generalize and summary some specific translation strategies, which have significance for reference in the following translating work.

The thesis of the study is to explore how to make rational use of the domestication and foreignization strategy to improve the quality of translation in global communication so that western readers can understand China to a better degree.

1.3 Layout of the Thesis

This thesis is composed of five chapters.

Chapter One is a general introduction of this thesis. In this Chapter, it claims the research background, significance, purpose and the structure of the thesis.

Chapter Two is the literature review on English translation of Chinese culture-loaded words in international publicity. It briefly presents and introduces the previous researches conducted by domestic and foreign scholars.

Chapter Three is the theoretic framework. This part introduces the concept of domestication and foreignization, the development of the theory, and its rellevant studies and disputes in detail.

Chapter Four begins with the introduction of China Today which is a pioneering periodical in China’s global communication, illustrating that it is the representative text of global publicity. In the following part, it explains and concludes translation principles and strategies adopted in China Today.

Chapter Five is the conclusion part of the thesis, in which the author summarizes the thesis’s main findings and limitations, and puts forward some suggestions for further studies on English translation of Chinese culture-loaded words in global publicity.

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Translation for International Publicity

Translation for international publicity refers to the translation practice of the overseas-targeted text related with politics, economy, science and culture. Difficulties in Chinese-English or English-Chinese translation mainly result from cultural and language differences. The process of translation for international publicity is not a simple conversion from the source to the target language, in which many extra-textual factors are involved.

Douglas Howland, working for University of Wisconcin, in his The Predicament of Ideas in Culture: Translation and Historiography says that rather than a simple transfer of words or texts from one language to another, translation has become understood as a translingual act of transcoding cultural material— a complex act of communication (Howland, 2003:45).

Bruce Maylath in Managing Complexity: A Technical Communication Translation Case Study in Multilateral International Collaboration discusses difficulties faced in a project involving translation from Danish and Dutch into English, and thus the translators have to become acquainted with other countries’ cultures (Maylath, 2013:67). In order to further study the publicity translation, scholars abroad have adopted many theories such as Eugene Nida’s functional equivalence theory and Hans J. Vermeer’s skopos theory.

At home, it has been an emerging research field since the 1970s. Duan Liancheng publishes an article on Chinese Translators Journal named Appeal to Translators to Pay Attention to Translation of Publicity Materials, which arouses great attention and interest among scholars and translators (Duan, 1990:12).

Since China’s entry into 2000, more scholars have attached importance to this field. Huang Youyi puts forward the principles of “Three-Approach” and calls for focusing on the quality of publicity translation (Huang, 2005:32). In this period, many researchers have a heated discussion on the translation of “外宣翻译” in English, including “International Publicity Translation”, “Translation for International Publicity ” and “Translation for International Public Relations”.

Zhang Jian, professor of Shanghai International Studies University, in The Name and Nature of Translation for China’s Global Communication claims that the publicity translation is the need for international exchange and closely linked to China’s path to be prosperous. He thinks this kind of translation should meet the requirements of English semantics, pragmatics and literary form and have wide readability on the basis of ensuring the accuracy of translated information (Huamp; Zhang, 2013:102).

Yuan Xiaoning in his Dual Co-existence of the C-E Publicity Translation Strategies puts forward that translators should have one’s subjective initiative and choose whether to be target reader-oriented or source culture-oriented according to different text content. He believes that translators should adopt translation strategies flexibly (Yuan, 2013:94).

2.2 C-E Translation of Chinese Culture-loaded Words

Chinese culture-loaded words refer to the words or phrases with Chinese characteristics, which reflect social reality, lifestyle, thinking mode, code of conduct, values and so on. Issues about culture specific words have triggered discussions and studies, both at home and abroad.

Spanish translator Javier Franco Aixelá, author of Culture-specific Items in Translation, classifies culture-specific items into two categories: proper nouns and general terms. Meanwhile, he thinks there are two difficulties in translation. One is entirely lack of words in target language, such as “针灸” and “经络”. The other is partly lack. Taking “bamboo” as an example, in Chinese, it is not only a kind of plant but also represents perseverance and persistent, while the latter meaning doesn’t exist in English (Aixelá, 1996:52). Shekoufeh Daghoughi in Analysis of Culture-Specific Items and Translation Strategies Applied in Translating Jalal Al-Ahmad’s “By the Pen” studies how to overcome the complexities resulting from the distinction between different languages during the process of translation and finds out that functional equivalent theory is used most frequently (Daghoughi, 2016:171).

Zhu Bairong in his Translation Strategies Based on Chinese Culture-loaded Words from the Perspective of“the Belt and Road” points out that if Chinese culture-loaded words are translated one word by one word or one sentence by sentence, cultural background and connotation is likely to be neglected. Besides, with the appearance of new cyber words, political neologisms and so on, people’s recognition and translation of these words keep changing, which leads to multifarious translated versions (Zhuamp; Zhang, 2018:25).

In order to solve difficulties of translating Chinese culture-loaded words, Wang Kefei in Translation of Chinese Culture Specific Words proposes to classify different categories of culture-specific items so as to adopt proper translation strategies respectively. Moreover, he thinks it is necessary to develop the relevant corpus which is beneficial to further researches and comparative study (Wangamp; Wang, 2016:87).

Domestic and foreign media have different translation strategies and inclinations of Chinese culture-loaded words. Zhang Linlin in her Compare the Chinese Culture-loaded Words Translation between American and Chinese Media claims that Chinese translators pay close attention to smoothness and acceptability of translation by adopting various translation strategies, while transliteration is more used on American newspapers and periodicals. Zhang thinks these two translations have their own merits and further predicts that translation of Chinese culture-loaded tends to change from domestication to foreignization (Zhang, 2013:163).

However, the study of the publicity translation is far from comprehensive and the number of essays about culture-loaded words translation at CNKI is under 20. Thus, based on the previous researches, translation of Chinese culture-loaded words in international publicity in the light of domestication and foreignization is worth studying.

Chapter Three Theoretic Framework

3.1 Domestication and Foreignization

Domestication and foreignization are important strategies in translation, regarding the degree to which translators make a text conform to the target culture. Venuti, one of the representatives of American deconstruction, in The Translator's Invisibility proposed the concept that domestication is the ethnocentric reduction of the original text according to the cultural value of the target language; foreignization is to put ethnodeviant pressure on the target language cultural values so as to reflect the language and cultural differences (Venuti, 1995:32). Therefore, domestication selects and changes the original text according to the needs of the target language reader. Foreignization is a way to resist the hegemony of the target language by retaining the characteristics of the original language, and strive for the survival of the original language culture.

3.2 Development and Formulation of the Theory

The thought of domestication and foreignization had lasted for years before it was put forward as a term. For example, dating back to Tang Dynasty, Tang Xuanzang advocated to preserve the original style and proposed a concrete principle of “Five Categories of Untranslated Terms”. It established five categories of words which should be left untranslated (Yang, 1986:21). To all intents and purposes, this principle contained the concept of foreignization, but had not been stated clearly and systematically.

Friedrich Schleiermacher, in On the Different Methods of Translating, put forward two ways for translation: one is to let the author remain there and lead readers to approach the author, and the other is to make the author approach readers while readers remain there. He named them as “alienating” and “naturalizing” (Schleiermacher, 1992:23). It inspired Lawrence Venuti, the first person to formulate them in their modern sense and introduce them to the field of translation studies with his book The Translator's Invisibility: A History of Translation in 1995. In this book, “domestication and foreignization” was firstly formulated as a theory.

3.3. Controversy over Domestication and Foreignization

Whether to adopt domestication or foreignization has been argued for hundreds of years. In China, many translators are in support of domestication, such as Fu Lei, Qian Zhongshu and Zhang Guruo. However, Lu Xun and Qyu Qiubai hold opposite views on this.

As the proposer of the theory, Venuti viewed that the dichotomy between domestication and foreignization was an ideological one, and foreignization was the ethical choice for translators to make, which was his innovation to the field (Venuti, 1995:147).

According to Lawrence Venuti, translators should look at the translation process through the prism of culture which refracts the source language cultural norms. It is the translator’s task to convey them, preserving their meaning and their foreignness, to the target-language text. Every step in the translation process—from the selection of foreign texts to the implementation of translation strategies to the editing, reviewing, and reading of translations—is mediated by the diverse cultural values that circulate in the target language.

Although Venuti kept advocating foreignization and objecting to domestication, during the later period he changed his mind. In the second edition of The Translator’s Invisibility, he regarded the relationship between domestication and foreignization was dual co-existence rather than binary opposition. He claimed that domestication and foreignization are not two entirely opposite concepts, and to some extent domestication is foreignization. There was no absolute boundary between domestication and foreignization.

Regardless of the advantages and disadvantages of domestication and foreignization, the ultimate aim is to facilitate the communication between two language cultures. Comparing these two strategies, it can be found out that domestication improves the understandability and foreignization is committed to introduce the culture of the source language. The related study should consider the socio-cultural context and social reality in China.

Chapter Four Sample Analysis

4.1 Introduction of China Today

China Today, original named China Reconstructs, is one of the earliest English publicity publications in new China which was founded by Song Qingling, the wife of Sun Yat-sen and honorary chairman of the country. In March 1951, Zhou Enlai, Minister of Foreign Affairs, hoped that Song Qingling can organize the establishment of a journal for publicity in English with her rich experience of founding newspapers and periodicals. Song Qingling accepted the idea with great pleasure and named it China Reconstructs. As its name, the journal is committed to reporting China’s construction and promoting the understanding of China.

China Today is a window for foreign people to know China. The selection of content is multiple and comprehensive, involving both historical and contemporary topics and issues. Besides, reports illustrated by vivid language and pictures are objective, timely and informative. There are many Chinese culture-loaded words and terminology in China Today, which reflect Chinese characteristics, phenomena and traditions. The journal takes the real stories in people’s life and work as the starting point, and shows readers a peaceful and friendly image of China. As an international publicity founder by the private sector, it pays attention to explain the problems from the perspective of common people and avoid political preaching and empty slogans, so as to increase its credibility among overseas readers.

The English version of China Today is the main force of international publicity. Since the resumption of formal diplomatic relations between China and the United States in January 1979, the exchange and cooperation in the political, economic and cultural fields between two countries have developed rapidly. In the early 1980s, the periodical office sent representatives to visit the United States, discovered the huge potential reader market in North America and found that American people are eager to know more about China. Therefore, the idea of establishing the North American version occurred and was quickly implemented. The publication of China Today starts China’s international publicity and builds an excellent platform for foreigners to understand China. The English version is highly representative in the industry.

The English version of China Today is one of the earliest English journals after the founding of the state. It is a good example for publicity in China, which presents an authentic image of China to foreign readers. Thus, the in-depth study of it will help us systematically and deeply understand the successful experience and existing problems of translation for international publicity.

4.2 Translation Strategies of Chinese Culture-loaded Words in China Today

In the previous sections, the author has stated translation for international publicity, Chinese culture-loaded words and Venuti’s domestication and foreignization. This part of the thesis will specifically analyze the adopted strategies. Taking China Today as the sample, the study excerpts relevant examples for analysis. Then, these examples are classified into several categories according to different strategies, and the study evaluates the achieved translation effect in the light of domestication and foreignization.

4.2.1 Translation Strategies in the Light of Foreignization

In the 1930s, Lu Xun advocated that translate the original meaning as it is, do not tempt to sacrifice credibility for textual fluency, which means that translation should be faithful rather than smooth (Chen, 2005:173). This view actually supports to adopt foreignization. In China Today, a large number of culture-loaded words are translated by strategies in the light of foreignization such as transliteration, literal translation and annotation.

Transliteration

Transliteration is a kind of conversion of a text from one script to another which involves swapping letters in predictable ways. According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, transliteration is to represent, as a word, by the alphabetic characters of another language having the same sound. During recent years, many words with Chinese sound have become part of the vocabulary of English, including mandarin, dialect and ancient Chinese. Transliteration is usually applied to items which contain many cultural elements and have strong Chinese characteristics (Shen, 2010:96).

Example 1

The characteristics of cuisine in Sichuan include tingling and numbing, spicy and aromatic, with a sweet, pot-stewed taste, represented by shredded pork with chili and soy, kung pao chicken, sliced beef and ox organs in chili sauce, spicy diced chicken, mapo tofu, and twice-cooked pork slices. (April 2019, page 71)

Example 2

Picturing such different aspects of Beijing life as hutongs, temple fairs, and Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City, each painting reflects Beijing’s historical features at a certain time. 画展中展出的几十幅油画, 其内容从胡同变迁，到北京庙会再到故宫午门, 都反映‌了北京在一个特定年代的历史风貌。(September 2017, page 67)

In these two examples, the words “宫保鸡丁”“麻婆豆腐”“胡同”are respectively transliterated to “kung pao chicken”” mapo tofu” and ”hutong”. These words, as specific items, retain Chinese characteristics to a great extent. As Chinese culture is exported to the whole world, over 1,000 Chinese words including fengshui, goqi and guanxi have been entered into The Oxford English Dictionary in the form of foreign words. It preserves foreignness and also strengthens cultural self-confidence. However, except for some words widely used and general accepted among people who are native English speakers, transliterated words especially those not standard are hard for English speakers to understand.

Literal Translation

Literal translation is directly translating according to the meaning of the original words on the basis of not violating the linguistic norms of the target language or causing misunderstandings. When considered a bad practice of conveying word by word or lexeme to lexeme, non-technical type literal translations have the meaning of mistranslating idioms.

Example 1

…… quickly ‌sniff out business opportunities‌ and enter the Chinese market‌.快速嗅得商机，并进入中国市场。(May 2018, page 58)

Example 2

Thus, when there is a controversy‌ between countries, the ‌first golden rule is to talk. 因此, 当各国之间‌存在争议时, ‌第一个黄金法‌则应该是对话。(August 2018, page16)

Example 3

Spending his life ‌in the Matou Mountain, ‌Wu Kesheng is a walking map‌ of the region. 他在马头山生活‌了一辈子，被称为马头山的“活地图”。 (February 2018, page 25)

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