The difference between domestication and foreignization in literal translation and free translation

The difference between literal translation and free translation

1. What are the definitions of literal translation and free translation?

1, in line with the national norms of the target language, the translation is true and lifelike, and the content and style of the work are maintained by preserving the original face (expression). This translation method is called literal translation.

2. When the translator is limited by the social and cultural differences in the target language, he uses the same or similar expressions in the target language to replace the relationship between content and form that cannot be preserved in the original text because of the differences between the two languages.

By using the method of "dynamic equivalence", we try to lose our original appearance, but from different contexts, we can still keep the original content and adapt to the original style. This translation method is called free translation. ?

Second, application.

1. Literal translation refers to the word-for-word translation of the original text, which is widely used in translation, especially in the translation of idioms, slang and proverbs.

Third, the advantages are different.

The advantage of literal translation is that it can retain the cultural characteristics of the source language, that is, its "foreign flavor". Literal translation is as faithful as possible to the original text so that readers can better understand it. Literal translation promotes the communication and rich development of the two languages, while retaining the cultural characteristics of the source language. ?

2. What are the advantages of free translation?

Free translation is used to translate a large number of idioms, allusions and proverbs in English and Chinese to avoid translation being too complicated and difficult to understand. Foreigners like to use many witty quips, and only free translation can show the exact meaning. Free translation is used to translate some special words, avoid mistakes and make the translation more fluent. ?

The difference between domestication and foreignization

First, define.

1. Naturalization refers to the act of a person voluntarily acquiring the nationality of another country other than his birth nationality. Generally speaking, people living abroad acquire new nationality according to the laws of the country of residence.

Domestication translation mainly follows the current mainstream values of the target language culture, takes the target language culture as the destination, takes the reader as the core, and fully considers the readers' cultural background, information reception ability and reception habits.

2. Foreignization retains the "exotic sentiment" of the original text, that is, it not only retains the formal characteristics of pure language, but also retains foreign cultural factors, that is, it retains the elements in the source language that are different from the target language.

It tries to eliminate the inequality of different languages in cultural status by highlighting the uniqueness of each nation in language and culture, so that translation can truly become an exchange and dialogue between different cultures.

Second, efficacy.

1. Domestication translation consciously adopts the fluent and natural style of the target language, so that the translation conforms to the expression habits of the target language, eliminates the cultural color in the source language, and makes the translation fluent and barrier-free.

2. Due to the differences between different cultures in historical traditions, geographical environment, religious beliefs, ways of thinking, customs and habits, the same thing often produces different cultural connotations and emotions in different cultural atmospheres.

Third, defects.

1, the defect of domestication?

Domestication translation can make the translator clearly convey the meaning of the original author, but at the same time domestication translation also obliterates the national characteristics of the original text. ?

2. The defect of alienation?

When such cultural differences are alienated, a lot of comments will be added, which will increase the reading capacity of readers and may also cause misunderstandings. On the other hand, foreignization translation will lead to the rigidity of the translation to a certain extent, and sometimes even obscure, thus reducing the readability of the translation.

Extended data:

Historically, foreignization and domestication can be regarded as conceptual extensions of literal translation and free translation, but they are not exactly the same as literal translation and free translation. The core problem of literal translation and free translation is how to deal with form and meaning at the language level, while foreignization and domestication break through the limitation of language factors and expand their horizons to language, culture and aesthetics.

Venuti believes that domestication means "bringing the original author into the target language culture" and foreignization means "accepting the linguistic and cultural differences of foreign language texts and bringing readers into foreign countries".

It can be seen that literal translation and free translation are mainly limited to the value orientation at the language level, while foreignization and domestication are the value orientations based on the cultural context. The difference between them is obvious and cannot be confused.

Some scholars believe that domestication and foreignization, no matter which one is adopted, must stick to the end and cannot be confused. However, in actual translation, we can't be so pure.

Translation requires us to faithfully reproduce the original author's thoughts and styles, which are strongly exotic, so it is inevitable to adopt alienation. At the same time, translation should take into account the reader's understanding and the fluency of the original text, so it is inevitable to adopt domestication.

It is neither desirable nor realistic to choose one strategy and completely exclude another. Both of them have their own advantages and disadvantages, so we can't lose sight of one thing and achieve the ultimate goal of translation.

In translation, we are always faced with the choice of foreignization and domestication. Through selection, the translation can find a "fusion point" between being close to the reader and being close to the author.

This "fusion point" is not a fixed "intermediate point", it is sometimes close to the author and sometimes close to the reader, but no matter which side it is close to, it must follow a principle: when it is close to the author, it should not be too far away from the reader; When approaching the reader, don't be too far away from the author.

That is, foreignization does not hinder the fluency and understandability of the translation, and domestication does not lose the flavor of the original. At the same time, we should adhere to the domestication strategy of language forms and deal with its cultural factors externally.

In this way, the translated works can have the advantages of both strategies, foster strengths and avoid weaknesses, so that they can have room for common development. Therefore, in the actual translation process, domestication and foreignization should complement each other and be dialectically unified.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia-Domestication and Alienation

References:

Baidu encyclopedia-literal translation

Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Free Translation