Fusion of cultures plays a part in writing styles & translation

• Main Author: Chen, Lijun
• Other Authors: Cui Feng
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities::Language
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/72408
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The main topic for discussion in this Capstone project is to demonstrate and understand fusion of cultures indeed plays a part in writing styles and translation (in particular). The book Bank Heists is essentially a collection of heists happened in financial institutes including Singapore’s very own domestic banks. The writer Mr Leong Sing Wee, a local Singaporean Chinese, had personally assisted in the investigation cases in one way or another. The reason for selecting the chapter On a Wild Goose Chase is firstly, there are vast amount of dialogues amongst people, which is a great area for cultural translation analysis; secondly, there is a wide use of idioms, idiomatic expressions, proverbs, sayings and metaphors in the chosen chapter. This renders a great ground for discussion on the topic of “Fusion of cultures plays a part in writing styles and translation”. During the process of translation, the strategy of domestication, a translation theory of Lawrence Venuti, is taken main reference to. Other translation strategies will be mentioned in brief. Venuti’s publications of Scandals of Translation, as well as The Translator’s Invisibility are the key sources of literature used in the process of translation. Besides, I also took reference of theories / approaches of a few other translation theorists such as Eugene Nida’s Culture and its five key areas, Nida’s Functional and Dynamic Equivalence theories, and Professor Ding Heng Qi’s ABC (Adapt, Borrow, Create) Approach in translation. I was inspired in terms of creative translation while still not straying away from the source text. After doing this Capstone Project and the related research, my conclusion is there is no one-work-for-all strategy or approach in translation but a combined adoption of relevant ones will be ideal. Nevertheless, the strategy of domestication is still widely adopted and is the one of the guiding principles in this Capstone project. This does not necessarily mean contrasting strategy such as foreignisation should be ruled out. In fact, both strategies can be a good balance for the translator to strike in order to achieve a decent translation work.