A Study of the Application of Foreignization and Domestication from Cultural Perspective

School of Foreign Languages,Xi’an Shiyou University,Xi’an,China Email:shenzhixuan@163.com

[Abstract]Foreignization and domestication have long been regarded as opposite translation strategies from two perspectives,linguistic perspective and cultural perspective.This paper studies the relationship between them mainly from the cultural perspective.After a comparison between the two translation strategies,the paper explores the cultural elements which exert great influence on the target language,and by conducting a contrastive study of some samples,it expounds the different situations in which the translation strategies of foreignization and domestication should be appropriately applied.The paper ends with the conclusion that in order to achieve cross-cultural communication in translation,translators should choose different strategies according to different genres and different target readerships.The relationship between the two translation strategies should be complementary to each other instead of being contradictory.

[Keywords]translation strategies;foreignization;domestication;cultural perspective

Introduction

The strategies of foreignization and domestication have been widely discussed in the field of translation all over the world.The ideas of these two methods were first proposed by a German classic linguist and translation theorist Schleiermacher in his articleOn the Different Methods of Translationin 1813,but he did not name them.In 1995,the American translation theorist Lawrence Venuti defined the two terms--domesticating method and foreignizing method in his bookThe Translator’s Invisibility.According to him,foreignizing translation is a source language oriented process,which allows the features of the source language to influence the language of the target text.It aims primarily to reproduce as much as possible the foreign elements in the original or the source language,including the foreign cultural features,the foreign formal features and the author’s unusual writing techniques.On the other hand,domesticating translation is a target language oriented process,which conveys the information in the source language text with the expressions familiar to the target text readers.In this sense,the strategy of foreignization is close to the literal translation(word-for-word translation)while the strategy of domestication is close to the free translation(sense-forsense translation).The representative for the former is Lawrence Venuti and the representative for the latter is Eugene Nida(2000).

Two Perspectives of Foreignization and Domestication

Looking back on the development of the translation strategy,the dispute over foreignization and domestication is mainly on two perspectives,linguistic perspective and cultural perspective.

From linguistic perspective,the methods of foreignizing and domesticating are affected by word permutation,cognitive process,linear sequence,temporal sequence,different prominence(subject prominence or topic prominence),the use of different voices,and different meaning relations(externalization or internalization).

Here is an example to illustrate the differences of the two methods from linguistic perspective.

(1).I was agreeably surprised to find that Littimer was not there.(Charles Dickens,David Copperfield)

我驚喜交集地發(fā)現(xiàn)李德默并不在那里。(By Xu Tianhong)

利提摩并沒在宅內(nèi),這是我萬沒想到而引為欣慰的。(By Zhang Guruo)

The first version adopts foreignizing method with subject prominence,showing a subject-predicate relation inside the sentence which is very typical in English;the second one uses domesticating method,which sounds more natural in the target language--Chinese,because in Chinese language system,topic-comment structures are typical.

From the perspective of culture,foreignization refers to the inter-language transformation based on the source language culture,but at the same time,readers may feel strange to the resulting translation and difficult to understand it;domestication refers to the inter-language transformation based on target language culture,so that readers feel less difficult to understand the resulting translation,but some information loading in the source language culture may be lost.So without understanding the culture within which a foreign language is located,it is unthinkable and very hard for one to master a foreign language and communicate very well with its native speakers.

Bearing this in mind,more and more language researchers take cultural aspects into consideration in their research in translation.However,so far they have not reach any agreement on which strategy translators should resort to.This study,therefore,mainly focuses on the cultural perspective.

Key Reason for Arguing over the Applying of the Different Translation Strategies from Cultural Perspective

Some scholars predict that foreignization will be the preferred strategy of literary translation in China in the 21st century(Sun,2002).Other scholars,however,suggest that with the passage of time,foreignization will give way to domestication,and the strategy of domestication plays a leading role in translation(Cai,2002).The key reason for arguing over the applying of the different translation strategies is the cultural differences or the cultural gaps.And there are mainly three aspects forming the cultural gaps between the source language and the target language which have always turned out to be a hard nut for translators to crack.

First,aesthetic element

Everyone in the world loves beauty,but people from different culture background have different standards to evaluate what is good and what is bad.What is regarded beautiful may be not beautiful at all in the eyes of people from different culture background,and even ugly.The reason for that difference is that a nation’s aesthetic pattern is closely related to its thinking pattern.Chinese people have long been influenced by the characters of hieroglyph,so we are good at thinking in terms of images.Western people,however,are constrained by the highly formalization of the letter language,and they are more used to logical thinking.Consequently these two different thinking patterns lead to different aesthetic forms:image aestheticism and logical aestheticism.And Chinese people prefer to have imagery expressions,sometimes even go to the extreme especially in the publicity materials.

Here is an example introducing the Sweet Osmanthus Festival in Shanghai.

(2).滿樹金花、芳香四溢的金桂；花白如雪、香氣撲鼻的銀桂；紅里透黃、花多味濃的紫砂桂；花色似銀、季季有花的四季桂；競相開放,爭妍媲美。進入桂林園，陣陣桂香撲鼻而來。

In this example,there are many typical Chinese expressions full of various modifiers and adjectives.But if the potential readers are from English-speaking countries having utterly different aesthetic values,they consider it as something full of hyperbole,making no sense and even funny when the literal version is offered.Instead,they prefer the following version:

“The Park of Sweet Osmanthus is noted for its profusion of osmanthus trees.Flowers from these trees in different colours are in full bloom which pervade the whole garden with the fragrance of their blossoms.

In this version,many of the modifiers and adjectives are omitted so that the version can fit into the thinking pattern and aesthetic pattern of the potential readership.

Second,political element

Political culture of a certain society often constrains the process of translation in some way.In different societies and at different times,the degree of the constraints varies.Generally speaking,translators are very prudent in dealing with terms with certain political meaning.Otherwise,the target readers will feel very confused if they are not provided enough cultural background of source language.

For example,the versions of“the upper-middle peasants”(上中農(nóng))and“the lower-middle peasants”(下中農(nóng))and“The east wind prevails over the west wind”(東風壓倒西風)may confuse the target readers a lot because all these terms have some political cultural background of the fifties in China.On the other hand,the term“electoral college”,translated into“選舉大學”,may also confuse Chinese people.

The effect of this kind of translation is puzzling and misleading.Here the unfaithfulness of translation is not because the translators do not understand or misunderstand the SL text,but because they have no enough political knowledge about the SL culture.

Third,ethics element

Every society has its own deep-rooted ethics values,which influence people’s behaviours and form common moral standards.Just like other cultural phenomena,the ethics of a society is exclusive to the cultural elements different from its own,and regards them as immoral.Consequently,translators have more difficulties in the process of translating from the source language to the target language when the ethics element is taken into account.China is a country with 2000 years history of feudalism.The accumulation of the feudal culture created a relatively reserved society sensitive to ethics.And the deep-rooted ethics values and moral standards remain the mainstream of the society.On the contrary,the western culture experienced the Renaissance whose aim was to emancipate human nature,so the humanity received more respect than the ethics standards in the western culture.As a result,there is a big gap on ethics between two different cultures.That difference becomes more obvious when it comes to describing the relationships between opposite sexes.

For example,

(3).He made you for a highway to my bed;but I,a maid,die maiden-widowed.(W.Shakespeare:Romeo and Juliet,3,3,134-135)

a.他要借著你做牽引相思的橋梁，可是我卻要做一個獨守空閣的怨女而死去。（Zhu）

b.他本要借你做捷徑，登上我的床；可憐我這處女，活守寡，到死是處女。

（Fang）

The version made by Zhu Shenghao has been approved by many critics of translation because Zhu took it into consideration that sex is a taboo in traditional Chinese culture,and avoided expressing it directly.However,this version forms a semantic gap between the SL text and the TL target.The version made by Fang is not only faithful,but also expressive to the original text.By means of foreignization,the translator shows maximum respect to the Shakespeare’s work.(See discussion in China’s Literary Translation:from Domestication to Foreignization inChineseTranslators Journal2002(1):42-43)

There are also many other elements influencing culture,such as social customs,religious belief and other psychological aspects etc.In a word,because of all these elements,Chinese culture is quite different from western culture,which further leads to some loss of semantic content in cross-culture communication or in the process of translation.

Foreignization or Domestication?

according to Eugene Nida(1993),“in any translation there will be a type of‘loss’of semantic content,but the process should be so designed as to keep this to a minimum”.

Foreignization

In order to fill the cultural gap,many translators employ foreignization to introduce the special phenomena in the source culture to the target readerships of other cultures so that they can get to know the SL culture gradually.

In this way,the distance between different cultures may be shortened.Take one sentence from Shakespeare’s sonnet as an example,

(4).Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

a.能否把你比作夏日璀璨？

b.能否把你比作春日璀璨？

Version a is source culture oriented while version b is target culture oriented.Somebody prefers version b to version a because in China summer is unpleasantly hot.But here version a may be more acceptable because if the target readers want to understand the SL text,they have to make efforts to:first understand that this is a sentence of a love poem in which the poet shows his sincere feeling to his beloved;second,summer in British is not so hot as in China.If the target readers take these two points as the major premise,they can understand the simile the poet employed.Therefore,version a can stimulate Chinese readers’understanding to the English culture.In this case,foreignizing translation shortens the distance between the SL culture and TL culture.

another reason for applying foreignization is that the SL text writer often omit the shared cultural information which he or she thinks the target readers from the same culture would certainly know.In many cases,the readers can automatically fill the blanks made by the cultural default according to the hints in the context and activate the relevant schemata in their memory.But the potential readership of the SL writer dose not include the potential readers of the target language text who are most likely from a different cultural background.As a result,in the cross-cultural communication,the mediators--translators apply foreignizing translating to solve the problem.

Domestication

However,the adoption of foreignization based on the individuality of a certain culture is not universal.Sometimes it can not convert the SL text into the equivalence in the TL text.This is especially true in literature translation.Foreignization may make the resulting translation obscure,even misleading,and too many annotations also exert some negative effects on the aesthetic sense and the literature itself.In this case,domestication is applied instead of foreignization.Doctor Nida gave us the theoretical basis for it:“although language and culture are always in a process of change,they are amazingly similar all over the world.”(Xu,1998)

Languages,coming from human’s labour work and co-operation,are used to describe human’s living pattern and express human’s thoughts.No matter in ancient times or in modern times,people of different nationalities have much in common in observing the world and expressing their feelings.

One situation for us to use domestication is that a certain expression in one language happens to have a different expression but with the same meaning in another language.For example,native Chinese speakers say“著涼”while native English speakers say“catch cold”; in Chinese,we have the term“添油加醋”while in English,there is a phase---“add spice to”having the same meaning.

Let’s have some further study on this point by looking at some sentences.By comparing the two versions of each of the following sentences,we can have a better understanding.

(5).He is leading a dog’s life.

a.他過著狗一般的生活。

b.他過著牛馬不如的生活。

In the above examples,foreignizing translation is applied in versions a which may confuse the target readership a lot; versions b are domestication pursuing the minimum equivalence between the SL and TL,so that the resulting translation sounds more natural and native,and avoids the semantic loss as well.

Second,domesticating translation is especially efficient in translating literature works containing the rhetoric devices such as simile and metaphor.For instance,

(6).He is as fit as a fiddle and now he is as cool as a cucumber.a.他健壯得像一把提琴，此時鎮(zhèn)定得像一根黃瓜。

b.他長得格外健壯，此刻神色泰然。

c.他體壯如牛，此刻泰然自若。

Chinese readers may be at a loss reading the first version because in their mind,they can not establish any relationship between a fiddle and being fit,between a cucumber and being calm.The second and third versions,however,are more acceptable by using domestication.For anther example,

(7).It is as significant as a game of cricket.

a.這件事像板球比賽一樣意義重大。

b.這件事非常重要。

c.這件事像足球一樣重要。

This utterance is produced by the British readership.And they compare the significance of“it”with that of the game of cricket because cricket was very popular in the 18th century in the United Kingdom,and it is still very popular today.So if the target readers of the version are native English speakers or Chinese speakers of English,the first version is alright,for the readers do not need large processing effort and are unlikely to be misled.If,on the other hand,the potential readerships are a vast number of common people from different culture,the second and third versions in which domestication is applied are easier to be understood with least processing effort.

In Chinese-English translation,the situation is the same.Here is a case in point:

(8).游泳池里人多得像煮餃子。

a.The swimming pool was crowded like boiling Jiaozi.

b.The swimming pool was packed like sardines.

For the native English speakers,they have never eaten Jiaozi,even never sn it and do not know what it looks like when boiling it in a pot.So the first version with forgeinization strategy confuses the target readership,and the simile in the second version is more familiar to them.But translators should be aware of one trap when applying domesticating translation,that is,sometimes there seems to have similar expressions in two different cultures,but in fact they are different in semantic meaning.For example,the terms“l(fā)augh off one’s head”in English and“笑掉大牙”in Chinese are seemingly the same,but in fact,the former refers to“to laugh in an extreme way or to laugh heartily”while the latter means“very funny,even ridiculous”.The similar examples are“to make one’s hair stand on end”and“令人發(fā)指”,“to eat one’s own words”and“自食其言”,“to pull one’s leg”and“拖后腿”etc.

Conclusion

To sum up,translators should choose domestication or foreignization according to different genres and different target readerships.It should be pointed out,however,that in applying the two translation strategies,translators should not go beyond what is permitted by the source language and culture and what is acceptable to the target readership.On the whole,translators can not resort only to one of the two translation strategies and go to the extreme.Foreignization and domestication should serve as complementary methods to each other instead of being contradictory.