Abstract A Dream of Red Mansions is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature and has been translated into other languages. It is generally accepted that there are two most famous English versions, A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Xianyi and his wife, Gladys Yang and The Story of The Stone done by David Hawkes. This paper mainly studies the translation of address forms in the two versions. It finds that Yangs mainly adopt the foreignization translation strategy while Hawkes prefers the domestication strategy. However, when finding the strategy they prefer isn’t appropriate, the translators apply these two strategies flexibly in literary translation, and they supplement and complement each other. By comparing the address forms in different translation versions, it can not be said absolutely that one version is better than the other one, or domestication is better/worse than foreignization. Each translator has his/her own understanding of the source language and his /her own cultural background, awareness and orientation. 53747
Keywords: A Dream of Red Mansions; address forms; foreignization; domestication
摘要《红楼梦》作为中国文学史上一部重要作品已经被翻译成多国文字,其中被广泛接受的英文版本为杨宪益和霍克斯的译本。本文着重对比研究了这两种不同英译版本中称呼语的翻译以及他们在翻译时所采用的方法――归化法和异化法。通过对比研究可以发现,在翻译过程中,杨主要采取了异化法,而霍主要采取了归化法,但当他们各自所使用的方法有所不当时,他们就灵活地采取归化和异化相互结合的方法来进行翻译。通过比较,我们不能绝断地说某一版本的翻译是优于另一版本的,或归化比异化好或者差。每位译者都有他自己的理解与他自己的文化背景。
关键词:《红楼梦》;称呼语;归化;异化
Contents
1. Introduction 1
2. Literature Review 1
2.1 Brief Introduction of A Dream of Red Mansions 2
2.2 Two Translation Versions of A Dream of Red Mansions 2
2.3 Domestication and Foreignization 2
2.4 Related Research on Domestication and Foreignization 3
3. Comparative Analysis of the Translation of Address Forms in the Two English Versions of A Dream of Red Mansions 4
3.1 Different Strategies Used in the Two English Versions 4
3.2 Yang Xianyi’s Foreignization 4
3.3 David Hawkes’s Domestication 4
3.4 Comparison of the Translation of Address Forms in the Two English Versions 5
3.5 Summary 11
4. Conclusion 11
Works Cited…13
1. Introduction
Cao Xueqin’s A Dream of Red Mansions is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature and it has been translated into some other languages. It is generally accepted that there are two most famous translation versions, A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Xianyi and his wife, Gladys Yang and The Story of The Stone done by David Hawkes, a professor of Chinese at Oxford University, and his son-in-law John Minford ( the first 80 chapters was translated by Hawkes). Hawkes’s translation is regarded as one of the best modern translation works by newspapers and Yang’s the most complete and the most accurate one. Yang’s translation faithfully bases on the original novel and is outstanding with its beautiful language and the translator’s serious attitude. Through careful study of these two translation versions of the two masters, the writer found that the address forms translated by them have great differences. The main reason for these differences is that they used different translation strategies and they had different translation purposes when they translated the novel.