On the Rendering of Extra-Linguistic Cultural References in Chinese-to-English Literary Translation: A Case Study of Xiao Qian’s Translation in the 1930s

Abstract

In the 1930s, Xiao translated the typical works of Chinese new literature and published them in China in Brief and Furen Magazine, introducing the New Literature Movement to the Anglophone world for the first time. This paper takes a descriptive approach to examine Xiao’s transfer strategies of extralinguistic cultural references in the socio-cultural contexts in which these translated works were reproduced and accepted and to explore the factors influencing the translator’s choice. Within Pedersen’s analytical framework, the textual analysis reveals that the translator always struggled with the inherent tension between foreignization and domestication, which was determined by the unbalanced cultural exchanges between China and the West, Western readers’ understanding of Chinese culture and the skopos of Xiao’s translational action.