Domestication versus Foreignization Strategies in Translating Fiction

This study addresses two translation strategies namely, domestication and foreignization proposed by Venuti in translating fiction. The former strategy employs a transparent and fluent style so as to lessen the strangeness of the foreign text for target language readers, and the latter strategy deliberately breaks target conventions by retaining something of the foreignness of the original making the reader feel the linguistic and cultural differences. In translation practice, translators usually face with the dilemma of choosing between domestication and foreignization strategies. The controversy surrounding the aforementioned strategies are heated when it comes to literary translation. Rendering literary works into the target language seems to be more difficult than translating other types of text as literary works have specific values called the aesthetic and expressive values. Since domestication and foreignization strategies have their own merits and demerits, the application of the two strategis may vary according to different text types, different reader reception levels and different purposes of the source text. In other words, neither of the two strategies can be followed in a pure and consistent way. To put in a nutshell, it seems that domestication and foreignization should be integrated with each other so that the source text can be transferred to the target reader well and promote the culture communication.