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Translation of Cross-cultural Communication
I．Introduction
As an international communication language, English is coming to Chinese daily life. For most English learners, the main purpose of learning English is using in daily life. For example, if you have the basic English level, you’d like to talk with the foreigners. Especially, the foreign fairs are becoming more and more frequently. So, it is very important to master or know more about the oral English, especially to master the expressions of daily life.
It seems that the expression of daily life is very simple and easy. There are few long sentences, few difficult words. In fact, if we want to translate them well and learn the veracious English, we need to go deep of the cultures which are not only in China, but also in the West. So translation is not simply a process of decoding languages, but the process of intercultural or cross-cultural communication. Because people are from diverse cultures, and this leads to different perception, evaluation, and attitudes to religions, life-styles, translators can hardly avoid cultural interpretation in the translating process. As Nida points out, “For truly successful translating, biculturalism is even more important than bilingualism, since words only have meanings in terms of the cultures in which they function.” 1
Many mistakes or Chinglish are the outcome of the differences between Chinese and English cultures. “Language can not separate from culture, for it deeply rooted in its culture” said professor Rivers. “Culture is defined as the most general concept to describe human behavior and history. It refers to innumerable items at different levels of generality: ideas, sentiments, values, objects, actions, tendencies and accumulations”.2 So in order to get the correct translation of expressions, we need to learn more about the differences between Eastern and Western cultures.
II. Differences between Chinese and English communications
A....
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