The Author–Translator Collaboration in the Translation of Religious Culture-Loaded Word Jinjin Fengqing, WufuTaishang Laojun and Ecological Culture-Loaded Word Huangmao Shu in Xuemo’s White Tiger Pass

Abstract

This study examines a collaborative translation involving Chinese author Xuemo(XM) and translators Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin (G&L) of culture-loaded words (CLWs) in XM’s work White Tiger Pass(WTP). Goldblatt highlights the challenge of conveying Gansu Province’s cultural context in English. The collaboration addresses the challenges faced by G&L. Initial email exchanges in The Dialects Puzzle of Xuemo’s Books offer insights into the translation process. The religious culture-loaded word (RCLW) Jinjin Fengqing, WufuTaishang Laojun, and the ecological culture-loaded word (ECLW) Huangmao Shu are studied in details. Author–translator collaboration is analyzed using Nida’s categories of culture-loaded words, informed by discussions between XM and G&L, interactions with liaison Miss Anuo, references to Don Quixote in North America, and interviews conducted by the present researchers with XM and Anuo, who coordinated collaboration between XM and G&L. Furthermore, Lefevere’s rewriting theory is applied to examine the influence of poetics, patronage, and ideology on translation strategies. Those discussions and dialogues as paratexts provide firsthand insight into the translation process. The findings indicate that G&L utilized domestication, normalization, and explicitation in the RCLW translation, whereas literal and textual correction are applied in the ECLW translation. The ideology and poetics act as the principal determinants in translating the RCLW while the patronage the decisive factor in that of the ECLW, in line with Lefevere’s rewriting theory. Collaboration between author and translators, as well as Sino–foreign partnerships, constitutes an effective translation model.