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 A Damocles sword -- the danger which will happen in the near future. Damocles is a courtier of ancient Syracuse and served under Dionysius, a tyrant who ruled over Syracuse. Damocles was vainglorious and envied Dionysius greatly. Later Dionysius realized Damocles’ psychology and invited him to a feast; but hanging over Damocles’ head was a sword suspended by a single hair. Damocles sat through the banquet in constant fear.

4.6     Cultural differences in value

Since the Chinese cultural value is different from western countries, therefore we have to deal with such kind of problems as a translator. According to K S Sitaram’s study, Chinese people and westerners have different response to other people’s praise, the different response originate from the different cultural value. In china, modesty is one kind of virtue, it descends from ancient times, we can see a lot of such kind of words which express the speaker’s modesty. For example,“鄙人”(Bi ren)、“拙著”(zhuo zhu)、“寒舍”(han she)、“犬子”(quan zi)……Such kind of expressions are baffled to the western people, because in their social life, self-confidence is one kind of virtue.

Age is also one important aspect of cultural value; the entire nation’s culture has different stress. In China, aged people symbolize wisdom, power and authority, so we often add 老before the appellation. For example,“老师傅”、“老干部”、“老王”……But according to western cultural value, young is very important which means vigorous and promising. So in western people’s mind, it is great important to be young and go on to study. The connotation of“老人”and old man or old lady are quite different, therefore we can not just translate expressions by such way. We have to concern the cultural value of different nations.

In China, the individual benefit is subordinated to the collective profit. Everyone should carry out his own responsibility and prepare to sacrifice the personal interest. The personal fame and success is associated with the collective closely. Here are some Chinese phrases, we can see the cultural reflection from them, such as “光宗耀祖”、为国争光、“给……争光……”

In English-speaking world, the cultural value is quite different from Chinese, individualism is their most important cultural value, the individual potentiality and hobby is in dominant position. The children develop the independent character. Since they are very young, they never attribute their success to their family. So it is totally different from Chinese cultural value. As a translator, we must overcome such kind of elements to provide a better communicative way.

In China, it is acceptable to ask other’s age or salary, but westerners consider these as their privacy. English-speaking people set a high value on privacy. There is a saying: “A man’s home is his castle”. In the USA, every one has his/her own room, no one could come in without permission. So parents can not enter their children’s bedrooms until they are allowed. Once there is a program called Oprah, one of the most popular talk shows in America, giving a topic about a 12-year-old girl accusing her parents of spending her money. It is a shock to Chine本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。