Translating Fictional Cultural Concepts: Cultural Mediation and World-Building in Liu Cixin's Three-Body Trilogy

Abstract

The English translations of Liu Cixin's Three-Body trilogy offer a useful case for studying how translation rebuilds cultural meaning that exists only inside a fictional world. Earlier studies have examined culture-loaded words, terminology, translator style, paratexts, publishing, and reception, while research on science-fiction translation has focused on invented words and world-building. Building on this work, the present study treats 'fictional cultural concepts' as an analytical category and asks a focused question: how do the English translations rebuild these concepts so that they work as coherent elements of the fictional world in English? Through a qualitative comparison of ten recurring source-target items, grouped around Wallfacer, Dark Forest, Sophon, and Trisolaris/Trisolaran, the study identifies four recurrent mechanisms: institutional compounding, metaphorical specialization, technological neologization, and derivational civilizational naming. Cultural mediation serves as the main framework, supplemented by domestication/foreignization and functionalist translation theory. The findings suggest that science-fiction translation mediates not only inherited cultural difference but also invented cultural systems, with implications for literary circulation and intercultural interpretation.