Faithful and Creative Translating of Culturally-Loaded Words in Literary Translation

Ban Rongxue

Northwest University

&

Zhao Rong

Northwest University

Language is essentially rooted in the reality of culture…it cannot be explained without constant reference to these broader contexts of verbal utterance. Translation is a rendering of ideas or concepts from one language into another, i.e., the faithful representation in the target language of what is written or said in the original language. Literary translation, as a cross-cultural communication in the form of converting an expression from one language into another language different from each other by means of recreating or rewriting the original meaning of the source language text in a target language text, is a rendering process of words and sentences at discourse level. Hence, every literal expression of the original thought with its culture reflected by culturally-loaded words and structures in the original text must be reproduced as faithfully and expressively as possible in the target text through corresponding words and sentence patterns, nothing should be added to or taken away from the original meaning, i.e., every created expression should be made on the bases of the author’s intention created in the original text. Therefore, in order to make the translation a real cross-cultural communication to meet the expectation of the reader, the criteria of faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance of translation is not only the ideal discipline for translation practice but also the one for dealing with translation criticism. It is the meaning of the source language text that from which the target language text has a chance to be recreated into being. So far, a faithful translation including culturally-loaded words is a matter of great importance to both the success of literary translation as a cross-cultural communication and the moral obligation of respect, for the translator and translation itself, to both the author and cultuare of the original text and the reader and cultures of the target text.

Key words: cross-cultural communication; literary translation; cultural translation; creative and faithful translating