Abstract： English belongs to the Indo-European language, while Chinese belongs to Sino-Tibetan language, the phonetic system, text structure and rhetoric methods are completely different from each other. Sometimes we can’t translate the source language to the target language leads to loss of meaning. We usually say there exists cultural isolation between two languages. Translation is cross lingual and cross cultural communicate activity.” The reliability of translation is based on the general character of culture, and the limitation of translation is based on the isolated character of culture.” People between different nationalities are able to communicate each other for a long time. On the other hand, some aspects of cultures are totally different from one another, leading to cultural untranslatability. Because language untransalatability can’t be avoid, so there are some methods to deal with cultural isolation, these methods mainly divided into two parts---foreignized translation and domesticated translation. Foreignized translation means the words or sentences only exist in cultures abroad, and we translate them for the readers to accept them, while domesticated translation means put Chinese words into another language. With these methods, people will gradually accept different cultures even though they haven’t been to those countries.

Key words：cultural isolation; untranslatability; cultural transmission; English-Chinese     

           translation; 

CONTENTS

摘要

Abstract

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Different language usage and habits between East and West-1

1.2 Cultural isolation in untranslatability-2

1.3 Some reason of cultural isolation-2

2. Cultural isolation in English-Chinese translation-3

2.1 Cultural isolation in English Idioms-3

       2.1.1 Cultural differences reflected in English and Chinese idioms-4

       2.1.2 Different location reflected in English and Chinese idioms-4

2.2 Linguistic untranslatability-5

       2.2.1 Linguistic forms in Chinese and English-5

       2.2.2 Morphology and cultural isolation in translation-6

       2.2.3 Word form in translation-6

       2.2.4 Charades in translation-6

       2.2.5 Some words only exist in source language-6

       2.2.6 Cultural differences-7

3. Word meaning between English and Chinese-8

3.1 Differences in word structure-8

3.2 Other differences between Chinese and English word meaning-9

4. Value and brand translation-10

4.1 Different values-10

       4.1.1 Value differences in animals-11

       4.1.2 Value differences in colors-12

4.2 Brands in translation-12

       4.2.1 Translation of brand names-12

       4.2.2 Misunderstanding of Chinese commercial brands-13

5. Approaches to cultural isolation-14

5.1 Foreignized translation-14

       5.1.1 Transliteration in practice-14

       5.1.2 Adaptation in translation-16

5.2 Domesticated translation-16

       5.2.1 Loan translation-17

       5.2.2 Substitution in translation-17

Conclusion-18

References-19

Acknowledgments-20