Acknowledgements: This might be my first paper, although I’ve tried to do some translation work from Bai to English. Here I would like to give my respect and thanks to the teachers at the Foreign Language Institute of Yunnan Normal University, especially Prof. He Changye and Prof. Xie Ming. They taught me a lot about culture and language, giving me a new visual angle on cultures. Prof. He during his busy-time, also gave very good suggestions to my paper and detailed corrections both in spelling and grammar. I am also grateful to the authors of the books I’ve consulted and the nameless Bai people who created so many beautiful Bai folk stories and songs for us. And my British friend Bryan Allen shouldn’t be forgotten, it’s he who gave me many valuable suggestions on the first draft of this paper, and much insight into English culture. Thesis statement: A different cultural background hinders people in English-speaking countries from understanding Bai culture. In order to deal with this problem, the cultural turn should be successfully realized in translation. Abstract: Since a lot of foreigners come to Dali for tourism or business, most of them are touched by the beauty of the landscape of Dali, its wind, flowers, snow and moon, also its colourful local customs. And many of them become so interested in and eager to learn Bai culture and anything else of the Bai people, folk stories and Bai songs etc. Someone said, even a stone has a beautiful story in it, and a leaf from the tree can play a piece of nice Bai song here. But it’s a pity so many visitors fail to enjoy the beautiful Bai stories and songs, because of the blocks from the language, especially the puzzles from the differences between two types of cultures. Here, several cases from the translation of Bai folk stories and songs are given, then we try to analyse them from a cultural point of view, making a better translation, to build a smooth way for the people from English-speaking countries to learn about the Bai people and their culture. 1. A brief introduction to the Bai people and their culture 1.1 A nationality with over 3,000 years of history The Bai people are one of the oldest nationalities in Yunnan. “In 1957, some cultural remains of the Bronze Age (about 3,000 years ago) were found at Haimenkou in Jianchuan County, 15 bronze and copper articles, including a stone model for bronze axes were unearthed,”[i] even some fossilized rice, wooden building components, pillars and other parts are underneath. This indicates that formerly Bai people lived in houses of “Gannan” style which were built half on the water, half on the ground with the door opening to the land. And the archaeologists described a vivid picture for us, there was a village located along Jianhu Lake, people here lived on rice farming and fishing. This is a typical agricultural society, and the history of Bai civilization begins here. It has a 3,000 years old history. 1.2 A unique culture witnessed in the life and work of Bai people In this long period of history, Bai people developed their unique culture in their daily life and work. Since the Bai language had no writing system of its own Bai culture was always transferred orally from one generation to another. So Bai culture is more valuable to people today and treasured by people. More and more people outside, I mean people from other nations, are eager to learn more about Bai culture, but the different cultural backgrounds keeps them from understanding Bai culture well, so the cultural turn in translation becomes very necessary. “In general, oral wo |