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Culture is defined as “the customs and beliefs, art, way of life and social organization of a particular country or group” (Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary of Current English, 6th ed.). what’s more, Newmark interpret culture as “the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression” (1988: 94). Culture is so deeply related with language, it developed with the social change, under the historical influence, with the economical development.
Some words and expressions are unique and specific to a culture and cannot be simply translated word for word from one language to another. Translators should also carefully render culture-specific words and expressions without distorting the original message to achieve the goal of representing “the original message in the appropriate dominant cultural form in order to give it the greatest chance of success” (Coulthard, 1992: 13).
This paper will attempt to investigate what involves the act of translating from English into Chinese. Especially in social and cultural aspects. Translational strategies of which the translator applies in the act of translating will also be analyzed for the same purpose.
2. Different cultural background
1.1 English background
America has a long history of translation. Since the translation of the Bible by the third century BC, English translation went through several large-scale activities, like Arabic literature translation, the translation during the time of Renaissance. Also, numerous translators and translation theorists sprung up during that period. They put forward different translation theories and standards at different time. Take the ancient Roman translator Cicero’s theories for example, he put the “literal translation” & “free translation” into theory. “literal translation” ,which means “direct translation’ or “a-word-for –a –word ” translation, and “free translation”, which mainly convey the meaning without any translation techniques. Those two translation theories are widely adopted even in today’s society. Meanwhile, Dante’s “untranslatability of Literary” theory, Augustine’s “call of God” theory, Dryden’s “three methods of translation” etc. all these theories made the early English be widely spreaded all over the world. And along with the cultural movement, the range of the western translation activities had been expanded into many fields, new theories and standards had been blooming , which led to a deep influence to Chinese translation circle.
There is a continualtrend of proper expression from Ancient Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, until to the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of the early European nation states. The central language of scholars and other readers was Latin. While the heart of that time was classical literature and Judeo-Christianity, linguistic transaction seems inevitable. However, Lefevere’s words made the background of understanding the social translation position be clear. In such a culture, translation not just meant for simply get information or knowledge through a foreign text, it was more than understand, but also exercise, first pedagogical exercises, and then, as exercises in cultural appropriation.
At the time of the Renaissance, there was a flood of translations largely from Greek, the core of the Renaissance gave rise to the translation in a more scientific and religious way, because of aristocratic interest and patronage.