On the Cultural Compensation Strategies in The Deer and the Cauldron

Abstract

The translation of martial arts novels has always been a difficulty in the translation field in that they involve so many Chinese traditional elements and complicated technical terms that translators are often overwhelmed by a variety of movements and characters of the martial arts. The Deer and the Cauldron, a world-famous martial arts novel, was a masterpiece written by Louis Cha and translated by John Minford. If the translator hadn’t compensated for the cultural vacancies, the novel would certainly become unintelligible to the target readers. By analyzing the solutions of the translation of cultural vacancies in the English version of The Deer and the Cauldron, the study concludes the applicable compensation strategies to the translation of martial arts novels, including annotation, contextual amplification, and adaptation, aiming to provide some reference for the translation and introduction of the martial arts novels as it is a literary category with Chinese characteristics and hence bringing Chinese Martial arts culture to the world.