1. Introduction
1.1. Background of the Study
Since the implementation of the reform and opening-up strategy, China has made remarkable achievements in various fields in the world. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, cultural countermeasures such as “cultural confidence” and “compelling Chinese stories” have been put forward continuously. The reason for this phenomenon is that culture, as part of China’s soft power, plays an indispensable role in national construction and enhancing China’s international situation and influence. At the same time, it is also a clear flag to display national characteristics. The purpose of vigorously developing culture is to make China go out to the world with a new visage, which will help the world better understand China and enhance China’s international influence.
In recent years, with the development of science and technology and the innovation of audio-visual industry model, film and TV series has become one of the important ways to promote culture. As Chinese film and TV series continue to go out of the country and step onto the international stage, costume drama, as one of the categories of film and TV series, is more and more popular with audiences both at home and abroad. Costume dramas are mainly set against the background of ancient times, which contain rich Chinese cultural connotations and cultural symbols of those periods. TV series such as Empresses in the Palace and Nirvana in Fire, have been successfully exported to foreign platforms and received favorable reviews. Therefore, the development and introduction of film and TV series to other nations is also very beneficial to the promotion of Chinese culture and the enhancement of Chinese international influence. In such background, the importance of subtitle translation is attached to directly reflect the value, language content, cultural background and meaning of the TV series. Accurate subtitle translation can help the foreign audience to cross the language and cultural barriers. Therefore, by improving the quality of subtitle translation, it will be easier for audiences to truly understand the cultural and language contents of film and TV series, attract more viewers, promote national culture and build a positive national image.
1.2. Introduction of A Dream of Splendor
A Dream of Splendor was broadcast in China in 2022, and was also broadcast on foreign platforms in the same year. This costume drama has been well received in China, and it is the only costume drama to be included in the collection of the National Archives of Publications and Culture. The National Archives of Publications and Culture appoints its excellent video works reflecting the new style of times and the representative works of the new charm of culture in the digital age.
According to Guan Hanqing’s Yuan Opera Rescuing One’s Sister in the Wind and Dust, this drama tells the story of Zhao Paner, Song Yinzhang, Sun Sanniang experience a variety of difficulties, live together in Dongjing City Site of the Northern Song Dynasty, and with Gu Qianfan’s help, the sisters made concerted efforts to make their small tea house into Dongjing City Site’s biggest restaurant.
As a TV series released in 2022, A Dream of Splendor is not only popular with Chinese local audiences, but also loved by overseas audiences after being introduced to foreign markets. Based on Guan Hanqing’s Yuan Opera, Rescuing One’s Sister in the Wind and Dust, this TV series made adaption during filming. The popularity of this TV series made the urban life and cultural implication of the Song Dynasty spread more widely. In this TV series, there are a large number of words and cultural idioms with Chinese characteristics, and these Chinese culture-loaded words are important for Western audiences to understand Chinese traditional culture and for China to spread culture. Therefore, translators need to pay attention to the translation quality of such words when confronting with a lot of challenges during the translation process. Translators need to understand the historical background, translate with cross-cultural awareness, and improve the translation quality of culture-loaded words, so that Chinese culture can go out and translators can better convey Chinese cultural contents.
2. Literature Review
2.1. Study on Culture-Loaded Words
As the research object of this paper, culture-loaded words have a long history. Culture-loaded words are symbols of national culture and change with the times. The translation of culture-loaded words has always been a difficult problem in cross-cultural communication. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the translation of culture-loaded words, which has gradually become a research hot-spot object in this field. Language is not only a cultural phenomenon, but also the carrier of culture. Language reflects the social reality of a nation and carries specific cultural connotations. Chinese culture-loaded words are difficult to translate owing to their rich social and cultural connotations, attracting scholars continuously study on the translation of culture-loaded words.
There is no fixed standard for the classification of culture-loaded words. Many scholars classified culture-loaded words by classifying culture. Among them, two versions of Nida and Newmark are highly recognized. According to cultural factors, Nida (1945) divides culture into five categories. The first category is ecological culture, which refers to geography, climate, plants, animals and so on. These factors make culture regional. Category two is material culture, which refers to the unique artifacts in different cultures, involving clothing, food, shelter and other aspects. The third one is social culture, which covers all aspects of society such as values, beliefs, lifestyles and etiquette. The fourth one is religious culture, which refers to various religious doctrines and their derived customs as the conceptual basis for members of society. The last one is linguistic culture, which refers to the expression, pronunciation, vocabulary and idiom with strong cultural characteristics [1] .
Newmark (2001) further divides culture into five categories based on the culture categories proposed by Eugene Nida. Newmark divides culture into the following five categories: ecological culture, material culture, organizational culture, social culture, customs and habits. Ecological culture contains plants, animals, wind, plains, hills and so on. Material culture includes food, clothing, construction, city, transportation and so on. Social culture is related to job positions and leisure tourism. Organizational culture is associated with institutions, activities, processes, politics, history, religion and art. Customs and habits involve facial expressions, eyes and gestures [2] .
Aixela (1996) uses “culture-specific items” to describe this phenomenon, and divides culture-specific items into two categories, one is proper nouns, the other is common expressions. At the same time, he proposes eleven strategies for addressing the translation of culture-loaded words, namely, repetition, orthographic adaptation, non-cultural linguistic translation, extra-textual gloss, intratextual gloss, synonymy, limited universalization, absolute universalization, naturalization, deletion and autonomous creation [3] . Newmark (2001) provides 12 ways, cultural equivalence, transference, neutralization, label translation, literal translation, componential analysis, naturalization, deletion, classifier, accepted standard translation, notes, gloss, paraphrase, couplet [2] . Davies (2003) studies culture-specific words in Harry Potter and proposed seven translation strategies for culture-loaded words in subtitle translation: preservation, addition, omission, globalization, localization, transformation, and creation [4] .
International scholars have put forward various classification methods and translation strategies for culture-loaded words. Therefore, when translating culture-loaded words into English, translators need to learn from their theoretical knowledge, combine the characteristics of domestic culture-loaded words, and summarize the translation strategies for Chinese culture-loaded words during the translation process.
As culture-loaded words can be regarded as symbols of national culture, they cover rich traditional cultural contents, and their definition and translation can promote the development of the process of “Chinese culture going global”. Therefore, study on culture-loaded words has attracted many Chinese scholars and translators’ interests.
According to Liao’s (2000) theory, culture-loaded words refer to the words, phrases and idioms that identify the distinctive characteristics of a certain culture. These words capture the unique ways of activities that a particular nation has gradually accumulated in the long course of history, which are different from those of other nations. Chinese culture-loaded words are the concentrated embodiment of traditional Chinese culture and the most core external expression form of traditional culture. Therefore, to accomplish the goal of spreading Chinese culture abroad, translators should take caution while using these kinds of terms and work to accurately convey the essence of traditional Chinese culture to other nations [5] . Wang (2006) explores the name “Fuwa”, the mascot of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, and also explores the translation strategies of Chinese culture-loaded words. He believes that for those Chinese words with national language characteristics and meaning gaps in the target language culture, the transliteration method may have certain limitations for foreigners to understand the true meaning. But on this basis to supplement the transliteration words, it can promote Chinese cultural characteristics, which is also called interpretive translation [6] . Zheng (2016) summarizes the English translation strategies of Chinese culture-loaded words into six specific strategies: transliteration, combination of transliteration and annotation, literal translation, combination of literal translation and annotation, combination of transliteration and literal translation, and free translation. He points out that the translation of culture-loaded words is a long-term problem, which needs to reflect Chinese characteristics as much as possible, so that foreign friends can truly appreciate the charm of Chinese culture, so as to help Chinese culture gradually gain a foothold on the world stage [7] .
Sun and Han (2021) analyze the English translation of culture-loaded words in Folding Beijing from the perspective of Eco-translatology, analyze the overall environment of translation ecology, and explain how to achieve communicative intention by means of “selection and adaptation”. They divide the culture-loaded words into four categories, namely, ecological culture-loaded words, material culture-loaded words, social culture-loaded words and language culture-loaded words. It is concluded that Eco-translatology theory not only can provide a new perspective in disseminating excellent Chinese culture and translating Chinese literary works, but also transform the unique attributes and emotional value of the original text. Therefore, the translatability processing of culture-loaded words reflects the confidence and openness of Chinese culture, and the concept of “adaptation and selection” and “three-dimensional transformation” contained in Eco-translatology theory provides favorable support for the translatability of culture-loaded words. Therefore, translators should pay more attention to cultural transmission and output, and constantly create a communication road of Chinese culture in the process of adaptation and selection [8] .
2.2. Study on Eco-Translatology
In fact, before the formal introduction of Eco-translatology, there were many ecological terms used in translation, such as “ecology”, “environment” and “adaptation”. Newmark (1988), a famous translation theorist, divides the culture in the translation process into five types, and believes that the ecological characteristics of translation come first in the translation process [9] .
Later, Warren (1989) derives from Newmark’s theory and believes that translation is “a mode of cognition and survival” which is similar to the migration of animals and plants. When animals or plants move from one place to another, they need to adapt to certain environment to survive. Only by adapting to the new environment and making changes, can they survive and grow. The same is true of languages. When translating one language into another, it is necessary to follow the natural law of “survival of the fittest” and adapt to and change the environment of the target language, so that the translation can survive [10] . Kartan (1999) further derives the translation ecological culture. It is points out that there are many types of ecological environments in translation. These ecological environments include natural environment, political environment, climatic environment, spatial environment, physical environment and temporary scene, etc. [11] .
With more and more domestic and foreign translation scholars studying Eco-translatology, the first International Symposium on Eco-translatology sponsored by the International Association of Eco-translatology Research was held in Macao Polytechnic University in November 2010. Famous translation scholars from all over the world participated in the seminar. Marion Boers, advisor of the International Association of Eco-translatology Research and president of the International Federation of Translators, gave a high academic evaluation to the establishment and development of Eco-translatology theories (Jiang et al., 2011) [12] . Professor Roberto Valdeon who is an editor-in-chief of the international translation journal Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice addressed comments and said: “Eco-translatology represents an emerging paradigm with a great potential for research and study. It is also a model with clear connections with other schools in the West” (Valdeon, 2013, p. 8) [13] . Danish translation theorist Cay Dollerup also discussed Eco-translatology in the context of Western translation studies. He mentioned that “Eco-translatology is related to these schools (of three influential Western school, namely the principle of dynamic equivalence, the Skopos school, and Descriptive Translation Studies)” (Dollerup, 2011, p. 34) [14] . The International Symposium on Eco-translatology has been successfully held six times and has attracted many foreign translation theorists who strive to improve and optimize the theoretical discourse system of Eco-translatology.
With the help of CiteSpace developed by Professor Chen Chaomei and other statistical tools, Mu et al. (2021) also shows that from 2008 to 2021, Eco-translatology in the CNKI is attracting more and more attention and discussion from Chinese scholars. However, in the international field, more efforts are needed to make Eco-translatology theory stay in the world translation field [15] .
In 2008, Hu (2008) proposed the definition and the connotation of Eco-translatology as a domestic translation theory in China. This translation concept makes an analogy between translation ecology and natural ecology. Based on the translation theory of “adaptation and selection”, it takes the whole translational eco-environment as the object [16] . In 2001, Hu redefined translation from the perspective of adaptation and selection, expounded the relationship between translator adaptation and selection in the process of translation. At the same time, he also made new descriptions of many translation processes, such as translation process, translation principles, translation methods and so on, which initially formed the basic framework of translation theory as adaptation and selection. In this year, Hu attended the Third Asian Translators Forum of the International Federation of Translators and put forward the concept of Eco-trans latology for the first time. At the same time, many domestic scholars have also made their own comments on Eco-translatology. In 2004, Hu published Adaptation and Selection in Translation, in which he further elaborated the basic concepts of Eco-translatology. At the same time, more and more Chinese translators began to study Eco-translatology theory. The year 2010 was quite significant for the development of Eco-translatology theory. At the end of this year, the International Association of Eco-translatology Research was formally established. In 2011, the first International Symposium on Eco-Translatology was held in Macao, and the Journal of Eco-translatology was published, providing a good platform for the study and discussion of Eco-translatology. Hu (2011) proposed nine main theoretical perspectives of Eco-translatology, which are: ecological paradigm, sequence chain, ecological principles, doing things with translation, translational eco-environment, translator-centeredness, translation as adaptation and selection, the three-dimensional transformations and post-event penalty [17] . Eco-translatology studies translation activities from the perspective of ecology in a real sense and theoretically constructs the content of Eco-translatology. He focused on the construction of Chinese translation theories, constantly improved the theoretical content, and promoted Eco-translatology to the international stage, making great contributions to domestic translation studies.
Wang (2011) analyzes the relationship between Eco-translatology theory and literary ecological research or ecological ecocriticism, and argues that the research and study of Eco-translatology has actually existed in the practice of translation. He believes that Eco-translatology and ecological writing have the same characteristics of deconstruction, but the deconstruction of the two is not exactly the same. The deconstruction of Eco-translatology is embodied in the deconstruction of the “translator center” consciousness and the consciousness of “primacy of original text” in the process of translation. The theory of Eco-translatology has also constructed a new research paradigm. He believes that translation is the translator’s creative reproduction of the original work on the basis of the ecological structure of the original work, and the selection of the original work should be based on the translatability of the original work itself [18] .
Han (2013) redefines the concept of ecological environment in Eco-translatology, focusing on the relationship between translators, translation and environment, thus opening up a new way for translation studies [19] .
With the progress of the times, translation theory has been updated with the changes of national policies and international situation. Nowadays, “green development” has become the theme of the new era of ecological civilization, and it is timely for the translation circle to think about planning “green translation”. It is considered that green translation is a new form of practice in the development of Eco-translatology, and also the requirement of “green development”. As a concrete carrier of Eco-translatology practice, green translation will develop its intrinsic green value in contemporary translation research and practice (Hu et al., 2020) [20] . At the same time, with the gradual and continuous development of the theoretical discourse system of Eco-translatology in China, its influence continues to increase. Hu (2021) is also constantly updating his theoretical content, creating the “correlation order chain”, revealing the “ecological paradigm”, confirming the theory of “Three lives”, and initiating the “new ecologism”. These theoretical innovations are no doubt the policy of going abroad and the innovation of making localized translation theories spread outward and internationlized continuously. Therefore, Eco-translatology is not only the founder and creative interlocutor, but also a participant and powerful promoter in the “going global” process of contemporary Chinese translation theories [21] .
Therefore, compared with the discourse system of Western translation theories, Eco-translatology studies need to maintain its own characteristics and advantages. And at the same time, Eco-translatology should pay attention to opening up and blending with Western theories and accepting excellent ideas, so as to improve the international acceptance and influence of the discourse system of Eco-translatology theories. Hu and Li (2022) conduct a comparative study from six aspects, namely, research paradigm, problem domain, research object, thinking mode, philosophical justification and system construction, which reflect the continuous enrichment and improvement of the theoretical discourse system of Eco-translatology, and also contribute to a clearer understanding of the different and new aspects of Eco-translatology compared with Western translation theories. This is also a new exploration of Chinese translation theory to go international [22] .
To sum up, although eco-translatology is a new translation theory in China and needs to be developed and perfected, a large number of studies on its theoretical development and application at home and abroad are sufficient to prove its feasibility and applicability in translation practice. As an emerging translation theory in China, Eco-translatology can better understand the translational eco-environment of Chinese texts, thus providing theoretical foundation to translate culture-loaded words in costume dramas and a new perspective for analyzing the translation of culture-loaded words in subtitles.
3. Case Analysis of the Translation of Culture-Loaded Words in A Dream of Splendor
3.1. Translational Eco-Environment of A Dream of Splendor
From the perspective of Eco-translatology, the translational eco-environment has a great influence on the translated works. Translators need to understand and adapt to the translation environment in order to carry out translation work. This section introduces the translational eco-environment of culture-loaded words in the subtitle of A Dream of Splendor from the macro and micro ecological environment.
The macro ecological environment of A Dream of Splendor relates to the cultural and economic environment of the 21st century. The 21st century is a new century, in which women also play a very important role. The purpose of this play is to convey the excellence of women, showing women’s strength, kindness, bravery and so on. In this context, gender discrimination no longer exists. With the development of women’s status, they have played crucial roles in dealing with social affairs. Secondly, China is gradually showing its charm on the international stage, both economically and culturally. More and more Chinese movies and TV series are going abroad. At the same time, many foreign films will learn from Chinese cultural elements and concepts. Therefore, cultural communication has become a breakthrough point for the country to stand on. Now more and more Chinese people have begun to use international media to vigorously promote Chinese culture and values, such as Tik Tok, Youtube, etc., as an effective way to show China’s unique cultural charm to the world. Strengthening cultural confidence and promoting traditional Chinese culture is an important way to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
From the perspective of micro ecological environment, translators need to consider the text style, type, subject matter, etc. Translators need to be aware of the limitations of subtitle translation. At the same time, A Dream of Splendor is a Song Dynasty costume drama full of culture elements, many lines involved in the tea culture, tea drama, cakes, idioms and other cultural connotations rich culture-loaded words, translators can not only translate those words literally, but need to explore the meaning of the words contained, accurate translation, deal with certain language and cultural barriers, and make those dialogue and stories easy for foreigners to understand.
3.2. Classification of Culture-Loaded Words in A Dream of Splendor
This costume drama contains many culture-loaded words. According to the specific types of culture-loaded words in the drama and the main components in the TV series, this paper roughly divides into social culture-loaded words (official signature, official title) and material culture-loaded words (tea culture, idiom, food).
3.3. Application of Culture-Loaded Words in A Dream of Splendor
3.3.1. Case Analysis from Linguistic Dimension
This series of culture-loaded words mostly belong to food and tea. We can see that they are translated by accurately conveying the ingredients and production methods of food. For example, “越梅蜜饯”, “梨条桃圈”, “蜜饯雕花” are all translated corresponding to their ingredients, storage methods and shape, and the literal translation is used to directly convey the meaning of the content of the source language.
In this drama, there are many snack names, known as “果子”, translated as cake. Foreign audiences will understand that this kind of cake is similar to their own country’s cake through the form of video and translation. And the names of those cakes also apply the literal translation strategy. For example, “桃花果子”, “豆儿饼”, “碧涧豆儿糕” are translated directly by translating the ingredients, so that the audience can better understand the name of the food.
“紫苏饮”, “青凤髓”, “灵隐佛茶”, “龙凤茶”, “龙脑香” all belong to the tea drinks. Most of them use literal translation, such as “龙凤茶”, formerly known as “龙凤团茶”, where the ingredient and the shape of the tea are directly translated. “灵隐佛茶” uses transliteration and free translation. “灵隐” is a place name and “灵隐佛茶” is a kind of tea planted in this area’s temples.
Food culture is an indispensable part of traditional Chinese culture, which has a long history in China. Food names show the charm of traditional Chinese culture, and contain most of the culture-loaded words in the drama. From Table 1, we can see that most of the food culture-loaded words adopt the foreignization translation strategy, using literal translation or combination of transliteration and literal translation. As a result, translators choose to translate the ingredients, storage methods and shape of those culture-loaded words. This can well convey the meanings of the food name. At the same time, those who do not know the Chinese food culture will not feel confused. This translation strategy can eliminate the barriers caused by cultural differences. From the perspective of Eco-translatology, the Chinese and English versions of these words are all language equivalents, because the translator carries out the translation based on the linguistic dimension, and makes a good bilingual transformation.
3.3.2. Case Analysis from Cultural Dimension
Because this drama is a costume drama, so there will be a great amount of words about official signatures and official titles. When translating such words, the first thing confronted by translators is to understand the cultural background. They need to clearly understand the duties and functions of these offices in the Northern Song Dynasty, the status of these offices, the subordinate offices, the relationship between the upper and lower levels, etc. This kind of words in Chinese expression, tend to be more lengthy. This kind of words is often used transliteration plus literal translation.
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Table 1. Translation methods for food and tea.
For example, “归元堂” and “泰安堂” are a good example, both of which have their unique roles in this drama. The former is a place to buy medicine, while the latter is a place to see a doctor. So the translators use transliteration to translate the name of the store, and then translate the different functions of the two stores, so that readers can better understand the difference between the two stores.
The names of the office, such as “皇城司”and“市舶司”, the translator translated their duties directly. “皇城司” is the office to protect the palace and to spy information for the emperor, so translators translate it as “Capital Security Office”. “市舶司” is the office set for the management of foreign trade in every seaport. Meanwhile, “私盐贩子” and “探花” adopted free translation. “私盐贩子” means the salt peddler sells without paying taxes, while “探花” is a presented scholar who ranked third in the ancient imperial examinations. “魁星老爷” refers to the Chinese folk belief god in charge of fame and wealth. “勾栏” refers to a brothel, which is translated directly using the English equivalent words.
From Table 2, we can see that translation strategies for culture-loaded words have been changing, and both domestication and foreignization are used. This is because if translators only use the translation strategy of foreignization, the audience will be unable to understand the subtitles. From the perspective of Eco-translatology, translators think about the translation process from cultural dimension. Firstly, translators need to consider the background of the source language and understand the cultural background. For some culture-loaded words that is hard to understand, it is necessary to first understand their connotation, so as to convey the exact meaning intended by the author, and the audience can better understand the meaning of the subtitles, thus promoting the development of the plot.
3.3.3. Case Analysis from Communicative Dimension
Most of the words in Table 3 are proverbs, idioms and proper nouns in the drama. When translating such words, translators need to pay attention to the plot content, and they need to consider how to translate it to make the plot more coherent. This is where the communicative dimension of the transition needs to be taken into account.
For example, when translating “落榜”, the translator emphasized that the person did not pass the imperial examination, which made the plot more smoothly. Another example is “青竹蛇儿口，黄蜂尾上针”. In the drama, Zhao Paner is poisoned in Gu Qianfan’s food, Gu Qianfan said this proverb after noticing. The last two sentences of this proverb are “两般犹未毒，最毒妇人心”. Gu Qianfan said this sentence is to use the venomous viper and wasp, to describe Zhao Paner’s malicious heart. Therefore, even if the last two sentences are not spoken, the translators translate all the proverb, so that the audience can better understand the content of dialogues, rather than translating the content of the words word by word, making it difficult to understand the development of the plot.
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Table 2. Translation methods for official signatures and titles.
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Table 3. Translation methods for proverbs, idioms and proper nouns.
Most idioms, such as “大逆不道”, “株连九族”, “半斤八两” basically adopt free translation. As long as the accurate meaning of idioms is expressed simply, it can realize the communicative meaning of the language and make the plot smooth.
“太白昼现，女主昌。学武王。” also uses annotation. The translators were afraid that the audience did not know Chinese history, so they added information to explain that Wu Zetian was the only female emperor in China, which also played a role in cultural transmission and letting the audience know Chinese history.
There are also many annotations used in subtitles, such as “两” and “琵琶”. “两” is the Chinese unit of weight. In order to make the audience understand better, the translators use annotation and converted it to the international unit of weight. For example, “琵琶” is a Chinese national instrument, the translators have provided detailed explanation of this instrument. In order to make the audience better understand this Chinese traditional instrument better. In addition, the communicative dimension is widely considered in films and TV series in order to keep the dialogue going. When translating, translators should not only focus on communication, but also consider the audience’s feelings. For example, “娘子” does not actually mean “wife”. According to the plot, we can conclude that Zhao Paner is the female boss of the teahouse, which is translated as “landlady of Zhao’s Teahouse”. Therefore, during the translation process, translators also need to have a certain understanding of the plot, so as to make the dialogue more clear and comprehensible to the audience.
4. Conclusions
4.1. Major Findings of the Study
At present, study on translation of culture-loaded words has attracted scholars’ attention. With the emergence of diversified Chinese culture on the international stage, an increasing number of researches on various texts with Chinese characteristics have been put forward. This paper analyzes the six translation strategies of culture-loaded words proposed by Zheng (2016), which may provide references for Chinese-English translation on culture-loaded words in subtitles [7] .
As for the translation strategies of culture-loaded words in A Dream of Splendor, this paper applies and summarizes the translation strategies of various culture-loaded words to achieve the three-dimensional transformation of Eco-translatology. Major findings are presented as follows. First, for Chinese costume dramas, Eco-translatology can be used as the guiding theory for translators to understand the background of film and television works, as it paves the foundation to complete bilingual conversion. Second, different translation strategies could be applied to different culture-loaded words according to the three-dimensional transformation and Eco-translatology. The purpose of translation is to require target readers to understand the meaning of the original text. And translators have to understand a variety of words with distinct cultural characteristics in order to carry out equivalent translation. Xu (2021) also emphasized that alienated literal translation of cultural translation should grasp cultural images and translators need to deepen their understanding of intertextuality and improve their translation strategies [23] . Third, some lines need to be translated in combination with the context and content of the dialogue in the plot, instead of being constrained by the content of the source language. Only in this way can the audience understand the content of the plot. Fourth, foreignization can be used as the main strategy to translate Chinese culture-loaded words, which can help Chinese culture go global. As a result, readers and audiences might be more interested in the deep meaning of traditional Chinese culture.
4.2. Significance of the Study
The significance of this study is mainly divided into theoretical significance and practical significance.
Theoretically speaking, it can be divided into three aspects. Firstly, by using the theoretical framework of three-dimensional transformation in Eco-translatology, this paper explores the translation strategies of culture-loaded words in the English translation process of A Dream of Splendor from linguistic dimension, cultural dimension and communicative dimension, and summarizes corresponding translation strategies that may provide references for future research.
Secondly, Eco-translatology, as an emerging translation theory in China, can better understand the translational eco-environment of Chinese texts, thus providing theoretical experience to translate culture-loaded words in the subtitle of costume dramas, and summarizes relevant translation strategies to provide a new theoretical perspective for the translation of such culture-loaded words.
Third, Eco-translatology can enrich the translation study on culture-loaded words. Eco-translatology, as a native translation theory in China, provides a new perspective for analyzing the translation of culture-loaded words in subtitles. How to cross those cultural barriers for accurate translation and ensure the quality of cultural output is vital for Chinese audio-visual market to bring out Chinese culture accurately and enhance its international influence.
From a practical point of view, it is mainly divided into two aspects. Firstly, this paper analyzes the translation strategies of culture-loaded words in the costume drama A Dream of Splendor from the perspective of Eco-translatology, and summarizes which translation strategies can improve the effect of cross-cultural communication.
Secondly, in the process of translating culture-loaded words in costume dramas, it inspires translators to improve their translation strategies, to enhance the attractiveness of Chinese film and TV series on foreign platforms, promote the international communication of traditional Chinese culture, and strengthen China’s soft power on the international stage.
4.3. Limitations of the Study
This part briefly introduces the limitations of this study and offers suggestions for future research. Due to the excessive number of proper nouns in costume dramas, translation is often blocked, and such a problem has to be tackled more effectively in specific situations. First, future research may not be limited to three-dimensional transformation as the guiding principle of translation. Other concepts of Eco-translatology can also be applied to the analysis process. Second, future researchers can collect a large number of culture-loaded words in costume dramas and study on specific areas such as tea culture, idioms, traditional customs and so on. In this way, we can have more proper English expressions of Chinese culture-loaded words. Third, it is necessary to obtain the comments of overseas audiences on the Internet, including whether they can understand the plot content, lines, etc., so as to properly deal with challenges of translating culture-loaded words in subtitles from the standing of target audiences.