Modern Social Science Research

This article takes Mo Yan’s novel “Red Sorghum” and its English translation by Ge Haowen as the research object, and explores the strategies for handling language differences between English and Chinese in literary translation. The article analyzes the differences between English and Chinese in language structure (form and meaning), cultural connotations (cultural loaded words), and pragmatic habits (expression styles), and explores how Ge Haowen responds to these differences in translation through specific cases, including sentence structure adjustment, cultural background transmission, and pragmatic style transformation strategies. Research has found that these strategies have achieved some success in enhancing the readability of translations and conveying cultural connotations, but there are also limitations, such as the risk of cultural misunderstandings and difficulties in language correspondence. This article summarizes the applicability and limiting factors of Ge Haowen’s strategy, providing reference for translation practice and proposing prospects for future research directions.

Differences between English and Chinese; Literary translation; Red Sorghum; Translation strategies