Abstract

Culturally-loaded words exist both in Chinese and English due to cultural differences. The proper translation of English culturally-loaded words may help Chinese audience gain a deeper understanding of those words as well as the culture of English-speaking countries, thus contributing to English learning and cross-cultural communication. This thesis, in which examples are mostly taken from the subtitles of American sitcom The Big Bang Theory, introduces the causes of semantic vacancies and the classification of English culturally-loaded words, and mainly focuses on the strategies for translating those words from the perspective of Functional Equivalence. This study shows that culturally-loaded words result from lexical vacancies, for which there are four reasons: differences in the historical backgrounds, in religion, in environment and living styles and in language systems. English culturally-loaded words can be divided into material-specific words, social-life-specific words, allusion-specific words and language-specific words. According to Functional Equivalence theory, the aim of translation is not to achieve absolute correspondence, but functional equivalence between the source language and the target language. Therefore, to translate English culturally-loaded words, the translator can adopt five methods to achieve functional equivalence: complementary transliteration, free translation, cultural substitution, annotation translation and zero translation.  

 Key words: cultural-loaded words; semantic vacancy; classification; functional equivalence; translation methods

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1 Introduction.1

2 A Brief Introduction of Functional Equivalence Theory.3

3 Causes of Semantic Vacancy.4

3.1 Differences in historical backgrounds .5

3.2 Differences in religion 5

3.3 Differences in environmant and living style .6

3.3.1 Differences in material products.6

3.3.2 Differences in social activities.7

3.3.3 Differences in intellectual products.8

3.4 Differences in language systems .9

4 Classification of English Culturally-loaded words10

4.1 Material-specific words11

4.2 Social-life-specific words12

4.3 Allusion-specific words.13

4.4 Language-specific words14

5 Strategies for Translating English Culturally-loaded Words.15

 5.1 Complementary transliteration15

 5.2 Free translation.16

 5.3 Cultural substitution17

 5.4 Annotation translation.18

 5.5 Zero translation.19

6 Conclusion.20

References.22