Cultural Factors in English Translation 英语论文.doc

第 PAGE 7页共 NUMPAGES 7页 Cultural Factors in English Translation Abstract: Language is the bridge or the tie of communication, it let people or countries understand and communicate with each other. Words are the most active factors in a language. They can reflect social changes, and have very strong national colors and personality of different cultures. Therefore, on the one hand, translator should reflect the original cultural background and cultural colors as faithfully as possible; on the other hand, translator should also pay full attention to the reader’s acceptability. However, English translation is not very easy if you want to achieve “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance”. Because of many factors influence English translation, and cultural factor is one of them. This paper will discuss the influence of cultural factors to English translation. Seven parts of cultural factors will be given to discuss it, such as, geographical environment, social and historical differences, religious differences, and values and aesthetic sense. Keywords: language; culture; context 1 Introduction Language is the carrier of culture; it is also an important part of culture and reflects a countrys politics, economy, culture, religious belief, manners and customs and so on. Words, meanwhile, are also the most active factor in language, the most sensitive reflection of the change of social life and social thought, and the most important part to reflect cultural personality. The so-called words include words, phrases, frequently used phrasal verbs, idioms, collocation and idiomatic expressions. Each language has special “blood” relationship with particular national history, while words are produced in specially historical, geographic and humanistic environment. So, words are the refraction and presentation of cultural factors, such as national historical traditions, social customs, cognitive features and aesthetic habit. Therefore, words are imbued with culture inform