The translation of culturally embedded terms in Li Jiuzhen’s Flowers in the Mirror presents a critical site for negotiating cultural hegemony. This study examines how cultural-hegemonic narratives, encoded in specific lexicons, are transferred in English translation and to what ideological effect. It develops an integrated framework utilizing Mona Baker’s narrative theory to categorize these words and Javier Franco Aixelá’s taxonomy of translation strategies to analyze their micro-level treatment. Analysis reveals a tendency for strategies like naturalization to dilute source-cultural narratives, whereas selective foreignization preserves subversive alterity. The study concludes that translational choices are acts of ideological negotiation, and proposes this narrative-strategy model as a replicable tool for critically examining power dynamics in literary translation.
Abbas, N. (2023, October 23). I carved a girl of stone: Nuzhat Abbas on feminist, decolonial, and anti-imperialist translation. Asymptote Journal. https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/i-carved-a-girl-of-stone-nuzhat-abbas-on-feminist-decolonial-and-anti-imperialist-translation/
Aixelá, J. F. (1996). Culture-specific items in translation. In R. Álvarez & M. C.-Á. Vidal (Eds.), Translation, power, subversion (pp. 52–78). Multilingual Matters.
Baker, M. (2006). Translation and conflict: A narrative account. Routledge.
Baker, M. (2018). Translation and narrative: The role of narratives in shaping reality. In In translation (pp. 45–62). Routledge.
Bandia, P. F. (2023, March 22). Reparative translation and decoloniality [Lecture]. The Art of Translation: Poetics, Politics, Practice, WLT 150 Lecture Series, Smith College, Northampton, MA. https://www.concordia.ca/artsci/scpa/faculty.html?fid=paul-f-bandia
Berman, A. (2012). Translation and the trials of the foreign. In L. Venuti (Ed.), The Translation Studies Reader (3rd ed., pp. 240–253). Routledge.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). Greenwood Press.
Carbonell i Cortés, O., & Monzó-Nebot, E. (Eds.). (2021). Translating asymmetry: Rewriting power. John Benjamins.
Chambers, C., & Demir, I. (2024). Decolonial approaches to translation studies. In The Routledge handbook of translation and methodology (pp. 210–225). Routledge.
Cronin, M. (2017). Eco-translation: Translation and ecology in the age of the Anthropocene. Routledge.
Gambier, Y. (2023). Changing translation practices and moving boundaries in translation studies. Babel, 69(5), 585–603. https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00338.gam
Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks (Q. Hoare & G. Nowell Smith, Trans.). International Publishers.
He, J. (2024). Translation strategies of fiction from the perspective of narrative theory: A case study of Bai Xianyong’s Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream. Hans Journal, 12(12), 1–8.
Hu, Q. (2022). The legislative thought of "sage" and "monarch" in pre-Qin Confucianism and its legal-ethical implications. Philosophy China. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
Kang, X. (2025). Fox immortal worship: Folk beliefs and popular psychology in late imperial China. Hainan Publishing House.
Li, J. (2009). Between yin and yang: The mentality of a subject-concubine. Dongfang Publishing House.
Li, Q., & Zhang, R. (2023). Study on the translation strategies of CSIs in Liao Zhai Zhi Yi. Modern Linguistics, 11(11), 5218–5225. https://doi.org/10.12677/ML.2023.1111701
Li, R. (2005). Flowers in the mirror (L. Taiyi, Trans.). Yilin Press. (Original work published 1827)
Marais, K. (2019). A (bio)semiotic theory of translation: The emergence of social-cultural reality. Routledge.
Niranjana, T. (1992). Siting translation: History, post-structuralism, and the colonial context. University of California Press.
Pedersen, J. (2011). Subtitling norms for television: An exploration focusing on extralinguistic cultural references. John Benjamins.
Ranzato, I. (2016). Translating culture-specific references on television: The case of dubbing. Routledge.
Schäffner, C. (2012). Unknown agents in translated political discourse. Target, 24(1), 103–125. https://doi.org/10.1075/target.24.1.07sch
Tymoczko, M. (2007). Enlarging translation, empowering translators. St. Jerome Publishing.
Venuti, L. (1995). The translator's invisibility: A history of translation. Routledge.
Venuti, L. (2018). The translator's invisibility: A history of translation (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Wang, Q., Amini, M., & Tan, D. A. L. (2025). Strategies, errors, and challenges in translating culture-specific items in Chinese-English literary works: A systematic review. Jurnal Arbitrer, 12(1), 88–102. https://doi.org/10.25077/ar.12.1.88-102.2025
Wang, Y., & Li, D. (2022). Realigning narrative tension: Translating China's national narratives for global audiences. Perspectives, 30(5), 789–805.
Yu, J. (2012). Sanctity and self-inflicted violence in Chinese religions, 1500–1700. Oxford University Press.
Yuan, K. (1984). Myths of ancient China. Chinese Folk Literature and Art Publishing House.
Zhu, L. (2022). A political philosophical interpretation of Confucian "righteousness" virtue from the perspective of modern Western justice theory. Philosophy China. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
Yutian, S., & Sukur, A. S. A. (2026). Negotiating Cultural Hegemony in Translation: An Integrated Narrative-and-Strategy Analysis of Flowers in the Mirror. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 16(7), 949–964.
Copyright: © 2026 The Author(s)
Published by Knowledge Words Publications (www.kwpublications.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
