A Study of English Translation of Culture-Loaded Words Based on The Mountain Whisperer

The Mountain Whisperer is a long novel written by Jia Pingwa, a famous contemporary writer, which involves a large number of words related to Shaanxi folk culture. Christopher Payne, a Canadian translator and professor at the University of Toronto, recognized that the translation of culture-loaded words was a difficult task in the English translation of The Mountain Whisperer. This paper takes the English translation of Jia Pingwa’s novel The Mountain Whisperer as a case study. On the basis of folklore theory, and in accordance with the 12 culturally specific translation methods proposed by Aixela, the culture-loaded words in the original work are classified into four categories. Meanwhile, culture-loaded words are a difficult problem for the translation and dissemination of Chinese novels. It is also suggested that the future development of Chinese novels can provide a model for the dissemination of similar novels in the English-speaking world.