试论外宣翻译中文化负载词的英译

试论外宣翻译中文化负载词的英译
The C-E Translation for Culture-loaded Words in the International Publicity
摘要
本论文主要目的是介绍在政治外宣，旅游外宣和电影外宣这三种目前最为常见的外宣文本中的文化负载词的英译方法。

在政治、经济、文化全球化的背景下，外宣翻译的优劣关系着国家形象和民族尊严。

本文遵循已有的外宣翻译原则，通过对外宣和文化负载词进行明确定义和分类，通过对具体翻译案例的分析，从而找到这三类外宣文本的最佳翻译方法。

关键词：外宣翻译；文化负载词；翻译原则；
1. Introduction
With the development of the economy, the enlargement of the political influence and the strengthening of cultural exchange, our comprehensive national power and international influence are improving constantly. Since China has increasing influence in the world, and the world has paid more attention to the development of China. But for a long time, international public opinion has been dominated by the west, so we have to find out our own advantages and play to their strength. To disseminate of Chinese culture all over the world, to establish a good image in the world and to improve our country's discourse right in the international community, international publicity translation is a long-term and hard work.
January 22nd, 2008, Chairman Hu stressed in the discussion of Publicity and Ideological Work Conference that we should insist on strengthening and improving international publicity to show the world the status of the development of China’s socialist material civilization, political civilization and spiritual civilization, to promote our country's idea of international affairs in a timely and accurate manner, to maintain national interests and image, so as to form the international publicity force of public opinion which is fit in the international status of China.[1] However, for this moment, the research on the translation of international publicity in China started late, and there are a lot of backward places, especially in translation theory. So there is still a lot of room for improvement. Among international publicity, culture-loaded words occupies an important position, so how to understand culture-loaded words and how
to deal with their translation work are especially important in international publicity. Culture-loaded words translation should not be underestimated, because the culture-loaded words translation will influence the publicity effect in a certain extent. After consulting the data, the author found that many scholars have made a study of the cultural-loaded words, and discussed them from different theoretical perspectives. But the study of a certain text is still less. Therefore, this paper aims at find the translation methods and alternative strategies of culture-loaded words translation in a specific international publicity materials, by analyzing the specific case of publicity texts，summarizing the characteristics of culture-loaded words in the case, and finding the restriction factors of culture-loaded words translation.
2. An Introduction to Publicity Materials and Their Translation Principles
2.1 The Detailed Introduction to the International Publicity Translation
What is international publicity translation? How to define it? For these problems, the sensible understanding of people may be “translate China’s foreign publicity materials into other languages, and introduce and promote China to the international community. It is hard to say it’s a right or wrong opinion, but we can say it is not rigorous at all. Under the new situation of globalization, opening up and economy exchanges with foreign countries are developing rapidly, hence the status and effect of international publicity work is more and more important. As the media of international publicity, the importance of translation work is self-evident. Therefore, Mr. Huang Youyi gave a more comprehensive and profound definition As the all-round development and progress of Chinese social economy, and the deepening efforts of foreign diplomacy,it is needed to translate variety information about China from Chinese to foreign languages, through medias as books, periodical, newspapers, broadcasting, TV, Internet, and international conferences, foreign publishing and spreading. All these above can be defined as publicity.[2]。

From the above definition, we can find 3 key points: firstly, it is the need of international community to international publicity. Under the background of globalization, to increase exchanges between countries, publicity translation as the bridge of international communication is indispensable. Secondly, the translation contents are diverse. When the links
between countries become more closeness, they need to communicate in more different areas. Not only in economic and politics, but also in social activities and academic exchanges. Thirdly, the purpose of international publicity is external publicity. It is different from publicity in China, because when you are doing translation work, except for conveying the original meanings faithfully, you have to avoid some misunderstandings from culture differences and customs.
On the basis of Huang Youyi’s definition, Professor Zhang Jian gave a new definition which is more general and wildly accepted: Internationa publicity translation is a particular form of translation, with the purpose of helping China to be understood by the world under the background of globalization. International publicity translation is a communication activity, where Chinese is the source of information, foreign languages, such as English, are the formats; variety medias are channels; foreign citizens(include all various foreign people in the territory) are targets[3]. In his definition, the purpose of international publicity translation, information carrier, channels of communication, translation object and the nature of international publicity translation—cross-language, cross-culture, cross-country communication are all cleared. But with the expansion of the scope of communication and the increasingly frequent exchanges, the content we need to communicate is also increasing.
For different kinds of publicity materials, what kind of text they are belonging to and what function they have are both important to translators quality. A British translation theorist Peter Newmark once divided texts into three types: expressive text, info rmative text and vocative text based on Jakobson’s theory that language has the express function, the informative function and the vocative function[4]. What’s more, he also put forward that serious literary works, official documents, the autobiography literature genre and private letters should belong to the expressive text; natural science, technology, and economic aspects of the reader report file documents should belong to informative text; notices, instructions, popular works and other genres are attributed to the vocative type text. Take this as the premise, Newmark specified further that the core of the first expressive text is the author. That means, the author's
position in this article is sacred, so when we are translating this kind of text, we sho uld to highlight the author’s personality. But for the latter two types, the core of the text is the authenticity and the readership. The author is anonymous in the text, so translation should highlight the content of the text, and enhance the readability of the text.
As for the types of publicity material translation, it includes the translation of political materials, news, public signs, information materials and etc.. For political materials and news, they usually belong to official documents, so they are expressive text. Therefore, in translating, it should be as close as possible to the original language, in order to express the text’s meaning accurately. Just similar to the method of literal translation. While the translation of information materials should belong to informative text translation. In Newmarks opinion, the translation strategies of the texts are largely determined by different factors, such as the purpose of translation, author’s intention, readership etc.. For different types of text fun ction and different purpose of translation, the strategy is also divers. Therefore, for different kinds of international publicity materials, we need to choose different translation principles.
2.2 An Analysis of the Translation Principles of International Publicity
So, what principles do we use in Translation? From ancient to now, Chinese and foreign scholars have put forward a lot of views on translation principles. In the late Qing Dynasty, Yan Fu was one of the greatest translators and translation theorists in the Chinese Enlightenment. In his “translator’s Preface” to the Chinese edition Evolution and Ethics, he writes “Translation has to do three difficult things: to be faithful,expressive and elegant. It is difficult enough to be faithful to the original and yet if a translation is not expressive, it is tantamount to having no translation. Hence expressive should be required too. Confucius says that expressiveness is all that matters in language. He adds that if one’s language lacks grace, it won’t go far. These three qualities are the criterion of good writing and I believe, of good translation too. Hence besides faithfulness and expressiveness, I also aim at elegance.[5]” The translation principles of these three words have a very important position in the Chinese translation circle, so they are worthy of references in publicity translation
work. There is a statement came out from scholars, that is Yan Fu’s “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance” principle was influenced by Alexander Fraser Tytler. We can't prove that it is right or wrong, but we can see from it a truth, that is there must be a lot of common places between these two translation theorists. In 1790, Tytler once writes in his book essay on the principles of translation “A good translat ion can transplant the advantages of the source text into another language completely and thoroughly.” On this basis, Tytler put forward his three principles of translation:“That the translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the origin al work.”
“That the style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the original.”
“That the translation should have all the ease of the original composition.”
It is not difficult to see that the first principle just the same as Ya n Fu’s faithfulness principle, and the third principle is the same as the expressiveness principle. As for the second principle, it is more accurate than Yan Fu’s Elegance. Since different kinds of texts have their own styles, we cannot just translate them into elegance. So translation should follow the style of the original text.
But for the principles of international publicity translation, people are still exploring them. Li Changchun has put forward the publicity work of the "three close to" principle: “adhere to the reality of the development of China, close to the needs of foreign audiences for Chinese information, close to the habits of foreign audiences.”[6] The "three close to" Principle is a series of methods, experience of the foreign propaganda work since the reform and opening up. It is a new requirement of central propaganda work under the new situation, and also the basic criteria to do publicity work. In 2004, Huang Youyi has also stressed again, to deal with difficulties in C-E translation, w e must adhere to the “three close to " principle. Western countries and China have great differences in political system, economic development, cultural tradition, ideology and so on. So some forms of publicity and content for the domestic audience are very common, but for foreign audiences, it may be more difficult to understand if not adjusted them sensibly but just word for word translation. Therefore,
when translating these materials, it should always pay attention to what the content can be literal translation, which needs to be modified, and which should be added or deleted. In the process of translation, only remember “three close to " principle, can we translate legible paper.
However, the “three close to” principle also has its own limitation. Profe ssor Zhang Jian had mentioned that when he talked about the translation principles in international publicity. He writes: sometimes, there will be a conflict between “adhere to the reality of the development of China” and “close to the foreign audiences”, just like the conflict between “faithfulness” and “expressiveness”. So when this happens, The translator needs to coordinate according to the situation. And it is a big test for translators. Therefore, he put forward that, when doing international translation, people should adhere to the following 3 principles: keep a clear political mind; highlight the core information; translate in concise and comprehensive[7]At first, since the international publicity translation’s audience and purpose are different from other translations, and it usually Embodies the mainstream ideology and cultural values of the source language, so it is the window to reflect the national political and cultural with obvious publicity purposes and the official color. Therefore, the translator need to have the basic quality of foreign workers: political mind, language skills, intercultural competence, etc.. They are translators, and also the ambassadors of cultural communication. Therefore, one of the differences between the international publicity translation and other translations is the strength of the political. The content and quality of the translation will influence a country’s image and dignity. When dealing with this kind of translation, according to the theory of objective decision method, we should have some selectively in translation, such as selected translation, omission translation and creative translation. Secondly, to highlight the core information is to achieve the best effect of translation and to increase the value of the relevant information. The British translation theorist Peter Newmark has mentioned in his book Approaches to Translation that communicative translation should respect the readers and take the reader as the center. Thirdly, concise and comprehensive is to convey the relevant information accurately with as few as possible words. Therefore,
in order to keep the concise of publicity translation, it is necessary to delete unnecessary and wordy words.
In summary, although different people put forward different translation principles, it can not be separated from the 2 key points: 1. Be faithful to the fact, be faithful to the original text. 2. Reader oriented
3. The C-E Translation for Culture-loaded Words in the International Publicity
3.1 The Detailed Introduction to the Culture-loaded Words
When we are doing international publicity translation, we may encounter a lot of Culture-loaded words, and this is also the big difficulty of translation. Then what is Culture-loaded words?
Since China has a long history of five thousand years and splendid culture, in the long process of history, China produced a large number of vocabulary with national characteristics. Among these words, we call the words which can reflect the gradual accumulation of a specific nation in the long historical process, different from other countries and special way of activity as Culture-loaded Words. It includes word, phrase and idiom.[8] Up to now, scholars have put forward different terms and definitions for this kind of words. As Mona Baker puts it, “the source-language word may express a concept which is totally unknown in the target culture. The concept in question may be abstract or concrete; it may relate to a religious belief, a social custom, or a type of food. Such concept are often re ferred to as “culture-specific””[9] Several Chinese scholars have also been doing studies on Culture-loaded words. What needs to mention is Hu Wenzhong, according to him, “Culture-loaded words are loaded with specific national culture. They are the direct or indirect reflection of national culture in the structure of lexemes”[10]Wang huan thinks that “every language has the so-called Culture-loaded words, which are closely related to the cultural background of those speaking that language, and which represent the concepts of those things produced from that peculiar culture. There are no equivalent words or expressions since such things do not exist in another culture.”[11] From the above discussion, for Chinese culture-loaded words, we can understand that they refer to the words that are peculiar to the Chinese culture and have no
corresponding equivalents in any other languages. Take the word “一带一路” for example, it is a new word in China and we cannot find any English word to translate it and convey the meaning of it.
In the long history of China and the west, due to the differences of social customs, ideas, national conditions and other aspects, it brings a lot of difficulties to the Chinese English translation. Chinese Culture-loaded Words can reflect the character of Chinese culture vividly, being regarded as an important carrier of the world's understanding of Chinese culture, the translation of culture-loaded words plays a more and more important role in translation studies. At the same time, the complexity of Chinese culture-loaded words makes translation facing various problems and difficulties.
3.2 The Classification of the Culture-loaded Words in the International Publicity
Language and culture are inseparable. Language is the carrier of culture, and it is also restricted by culture. Nida ever said that, if a translator wants to contribute a due share to cross-cultural communication, there are five types of sub-culture he or sh should clearly recognize: 1 ecological; 2 material culture; 3 social culture; 4 religious culture; 5 linguistic culture[12] Ecological culture includes plants and animals, geographical environment, climate change and so on. Material culture refers to the different culture in the unique product of the material, they are the carrier of culture. Such as the Great Wall, China’s dumplings, tofu and so on, there is no direct corresponding expression in English. The social culture relates to people's life cover and contain everything, in all aspects. For example, social customs, traditional culture, ideology, moral standards, historical background and so on. Religious culture is an important part of human culture. As for the linguistic culture, it is more abundant, extensive and profound. Idioms, allegorical sayings are the crystallization of traditional culture.
It has already been mentioned above that the text of publicity material mainly includes political materials, news, public signs and information materials. While for culture loaded words, according to the classification of culture, it is divided into five categories. So in the text of international publicity, the culture-loaded words mainly
refer to the words about social culture. However, how should we divided social culture and which kinds of categories social culture can be divided into are the questions that too complicated to discuss. So in this paper, due to the space limitation, the author only analyses three kinds of international publicity materials which are the most common in people’s life: political publicity, tourism publ icity and films publicity.
3.3 Culture-loaded Words Translation in the International Publicity
3.3.1 Culture-loaded Words Translation in Politics Publicity
Among all the publicity texts, political publicity includes the most culture-loaded words. Since the reform and opening up, China’s influence in the world political and economic life in the world is increasing, and exchanges with other countries in the world continue to expand. Since high level leaders of all countries have become more frequent visits, the foreign publicity work has been further strengthened. Political literature, mainly refers to the party and state leaders’ speech, the party and government documents and work reports and so on.[13] With the rapid development of various social undertakings in China, more and more Chinese characteristic words appear in the political literature. Due to the special nature of political literature, the differences between English and Chinese language and culture as well as the audience's "internal and external", compared with other types of translation, the translation of political documents more stringent requirements.
Here, the writer find some representative Chinese culture-loaded words which were appeared in recent years in political speeches and reports. Fo r example: “一带一路” translate into “one belt one road”; “新常态” translate into “new normal”; “改革开放” translate into “reform and open”; “小微企业” translate into “small and micro businesses”; “三个代表” translate into “three represents”. From the results of the above, it is obvious that the translation of these words can be treated as foreignization. Such translation has retained the greatest degree of Chinese words characteristics. These words are in political papers, representing country’s fundamental policy, so domestication and improper handling is very easily lead to misunderstanding. Therefore, the most important thing when we are translating these words is the
accuracy of the translation. However, the final purpose of any translation is to be understood, so blindly foreignization will easy to cause the foreign readers confused. At this point, we need to add a small bracket to explain the meaning of the new word. This will not make readers misunderstanding, and can also to spread Chinese characteristics to foreign audiences.
3.3.2 Culture-loaded Words Translation in Tourism Publicity
In the past 20 years, the tourism industry has become more and more important in the development of the world economy, and has become one of the important economic pillar industries. With China's further reform and opening up, international exchanges and enhanced, the number of tourists to China has also increased. Therefore, how to introduce China’s unique tourism places appropriately to foreign tourists to promote exchanges between China and foreign countries has become particularly important. As is known to all, culture-loaded words represent the cultural characteristics of China, so the importance of culture loaded words translation is obvious. When translating the culture-loaded words in the tourism publicity material, we need to pay attention to its informative function and the vocative function. Because the tourism publicity aims to make foreign readers have a desire to travel in China after reading the publicity text. This is the vocative function: Enhance the infection of the article to make readers have the desire to visit China through a vividly description of the article. The informative function is to provide readers with a wealth of travel information, as well as cultural, historical and cultural information. In the translation of such texts, the first thing we have to pay attention to is practical and realistic. So the translator should fully understand the relative information and translate them in a appropriate way based on truth. The second thing we should take care is that the translation should have a sense of beauty. At the same time, the translator should know the cultural differences between China and foreign countries, how to grasp the interest of foreign tourists, and make the translation be more likely to be accepted by foreigners.
3.3.3 Culture-loaded Words Translation in Films Publicity
The film, as a carrier of culture and a special cultural commodity, has become
one of the main cultural consumer goods. Because of the unique characteristics of Chinese language and the unique cultural tradition of China, the Chinese film has become a window for the world to understand Chinese culture, so there are many culture-loaded words appeared in films. But in the face of different language and cultural background audiences, how to translate the culture-loaded words can achieve good publicity effect, and achieve the purpose of attracting the audience? The work of film translation including the translation of title and subtitle is very important. It is 30 years since the last century 80's the fifth generation directors began to emerged. However, at that time, the film 《秋菊打官司》was translated into “Qiu ju da guansi” which was just the pinyin of the title. In 2008, the film 《赤壁》was translated into “red cliff”. These are the translation that ignored traditional culture and translation principles. They are unscientific, so they are unable to reach the effect of attracting the audience and spreading culture. So the author believes that the translation of movie publicity, should pay attention to 3 principles: information transfer, aesthetic appreciation and commercial publicity. When the first two can be done well, the effect of the last one is achieved. That is to say, the text features of the film publicity is to meet the informative function and vocative function, and mainly the informative function. However, since the traditional Chinese culture is rich , extensive and profound, when in translation, we cannot ignore the target language audience's receptive ability to the excessive emphasis on the spread of Chinese culture.
For the title of Chinese films, there are some examples:
Example 1: 《百年好合》——Love for All Seasons
《无间道》——Infernal Affairs
Example 2：《梁山伯与祝英台》——The Butterfly Lovers
《唐伯虎点秋香》——Flirting scholar
In the example 1, the title is a condensed language which can let audiences to understand the theme of the film quickly. Such as 《无间道》, it was a term in Buddhism. If we translate the words according to the literal meaning, it is easy to make people confused. So translate 《无间道》into Affairs Infernal is faithful to the information of original film.
In the example 2, use metaphors to compare the couple to butterflies, can not only make the foreign audience produce a lot of good imagination, but also a good expression for the film itself. As for 《唐伯虎点秋香》，it is very humors to translate into Flirting scholar. Just in line with the film's comedy color.
4. conclusion
Chinese culture-loaded words contains a large number of Chinese cultural information, that is the characteristics of the Chinese nation, so deal with publicity texts properly plays an important role in publicity work. However, different kinds of texts have its own characteristics, for instance, most of the political literature is more official, representing the government's attitude. Therefore, “Xin” which means faithful to the original text is the most important thing. Therefore, the writer suggests that the translation is translated in the way of literal translation and annotation. While tourism publicity will focus on beauty, because of the lack of aesthetic translation is hard to attract foreign tourists. So its translation principl es are focused on “Ya”. Through the strategy of proper addition and deletion in the translation helps to form a graceful translation. Publicize by films is a fresh way compared to last two ways. It not only transmit the information, but also spread the culture. In order to make the culture of our country more easily to be accepted, “three close to” principle—close to the habits of foreign audiences should be keep in mind. But the culture-loaded words are different from the general vocabularies, they have more Chinese cultural characteristics, so the translation should pay attention to the expression of Chinese culture. In addition to these three kinds of styles, there are many aspects involved in the culture-loaded words in publicity. In short, in the process of translation of Chinese culture-loaded words, we should focus on different translation methods and strategies in different styles. And strive to achieve both persist Chinese cultural characteristics and let the world know more about China, reaching the goal of publicity. Mr. Qian gechuan has ever said: There is no fixed rule and method of translation. We can only accumulate experience in practice, to find some rules, and apply literal translation and free translation in translation practice properly. Under the background of world politics and economy increasingly globalization, China's foreign publicity translation。