Translation of culture-specific items in Hawking's A Brief History of Time: from the Big Bang to Black Holes

Cultures influence people’s way of life, for instance, living style, thinking method, or perception of the world and values. Each culture has its special items in transmitting its insights and values. Similarly, different cultures have their own features in communication and expression. Newmark (2010) noted that culture is one of the greatest obstacles to translation; thus, the translation of cultural issues is one of the most important concerns among translators, with the major task for translators being to employ an appropriate strategy in translating culture-specific items(CSIs). To a translator, the important thing is not only the translation skills, but also the cultural connotation. This study determines culture-specific items (CSIs) from English A Brief History of Time (1988) by Stephen Hawking to the Chinese version Shíjiān Jiǎnshǐ (时间简史) translated by Wu Zhongchao and Xu Mingxian (2010). On the grounds of Newmark’s (2010) model, this research categorizes culture-specific items (CSIs) and examines cultural translation procedures. The findings present that a number of culture-specific items (CSIs) are found, and Newmark’s (2010) model is suitable for the translation of culture-specific items (CSIs) in Hawking’s translated popular science work. This study highlights that translation is not an isolated activity; it interacts and binds to culture. This research provides new and valuable insights into a better understanding of the translation of culture-specific items (CSIs) in popular science work and expands the field of translation studies.

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