Zhang Dong

Due to the long historical development of Chinese language and culture, culture-specific lexical items have undergone processes of historical consolidation, geographical influence, social formation, and religious shaping, gradually becoming distinctive cultural symbols that carry rich connotations and play a significant role in intercultural communication. Culture-specific items can be conditionally divided into five categories: ecological, material, social, religious, and linguistic. They are widely used in literary texts and pose challenges for translation.

The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze strategies for rendering Chinese culture-specific vocabulary in literary texts in intercultural communication contexts, as well as to evaluate their effectiveness based on Russian translations of Mo Yan's works. The following methods are employed: classificatory analysis, comparative-contrastive analysis, translation strategy analysis, and theoretical analysis.

Results. The analysis revealed that the most effective approach to rendering culture-specific vocabulary is a combination of strategies, including literal translation, literal translation with annotations, paraphrasing, transcription, and neologism formation. The findings confirm the importance of flexibly combining foreignization and domestication strategies.

Conclusion. Culture-specific vocabulary in literary texts is fundamentally translatable. The success of translation depends on the adaptive selection of strategies, taking into account the type of cultural reference, context, and target audience reception. Translation thus serves as an effective tool for intercultural dialogue, revealing unique cultural meanings.