Translator Behavior Criticism: German Translation of Culture-Loaded Words in The Seventh Day

This study employs Zhou Lingshun’s translator behavior criticism as its theoretical framework to systematically analyze the German translator Ulrich Kautz’s strategies in handling culture-loaded words in his translation of Yu Hua’s The Seventh Day, from both intra-translational and extra-translational perspectives. The findings reveal that Kautz consistently adhered to the “truth-seeking and utility-attaining” continuum principle, employing diverse strategies, such as transliteration, literal translation, free translation, and adaptation to strike a balance between preserving source-culture heterogeneity and ensuring target-reader comprehension. On the extra-translational level, his identity as a translator, reader awareness, and selection criteria highlights a utility-oriented approach; on the intra-translational level, his treatment of five categories of culture-loaded words—ecological, material, social, religious, and linguistic—demonstrates a dual commitment to semantic accuracy and cultural adaptation. Kautz’s translation practice not only offers a model for disseminating Chinese literature in the German-speaking world but also validates the applicability and practical significance of translator behavior criticism in literary translation studies.

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