Domestication versus foreignization has been one of the highly popular but slightly clichéd issues in translation studies over the past few decades. This study first provides a brief review of the paired concepts’ two academic traces – one brought forth by Lawrence Venuti and one developing in the Chinese academia – and points out the intriguing “mixture” or “blend” of the two traces in the Chinese academic circle since 2000. Then the paper discusses the common confusion and distinction between domestication/ foreignization and free translation/ literal translation, and more importantly, analyzes the development of domestication and foreignization on the macro and micro levels. As the issue has been somewhat fully and excessively explored from a macroscopic, binary perspective, this study proposes a more microscopic approach that limits the discussion of domestication and foreignization to the linguistic and cultural elements with “cultural specificity” in any given text so as to probe into varieties and possibilities in translation techniques and renderings between, within and related to the two.
This present study argues that between domestication and foreignization exist other options, including concession, neutralization, transformation, equalization, and integration. Internally, foreignization can be subcategorized into phonetic, lexical, attributive and stylistic ones, while domestication can come in lexical, idiomatic, customary and stylistic ones. Domestication and foreignization also involve two phenomena or techniques: cancellation and manifestation. Through more detailed classification, definition and exemplification, the paper aims to delve deeper and broader into the non-binary aspects of domestication and foreignization in order to increase the pragmatic and pedagogical contributions and values on this issue.
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