On Translation Of Personal Names In David Hawkes’ Version Of Hong Lou Meng: From The Perspective Of Translation As Adaptation And Selection

Hong Lou Meng, as one of Chinese classical literatures, involves more than400characters. It is known as the model work which describes characters in Chinese classicalnovels. Characters· names are carriers of the writing information, passing the clues ofunderstanding the novel with grand structure to the readers. Therefore, it is not easy toproperly translate these personal names in order to reduce the readers· reading obstacles.Translation theories come into being endlessly. Different theorists on translation havedifferent explanations on issues of translation criteria and translation method. In1960s, thecultural turn in translation studies has aroused many theorists· interests in the translators.However, there are hardly previous studies which discuss the specific role of the translators inthe translation activities. In view of this, Professor Hu Gengshen proposed Translation asAdaptation and Selection in which status of the translators is more fully reflected. InTranslation as Adaptation and Selection, the translators· adaptive selections embody inchoosing translation strategies. The translation method in Translation as Adaptation andSelection can be summarized as Adaptive Transformation from Three Dimensionsμ. In otherwords, under the principle of multi-dimensional adaptation and adaptive selection, thetranslators relatively concentrate on the adaptive transformation from linguistic dimension,cultural dimension and communicative dimension.The thesis applied Translation as Adaptation and Selection to the study of personal nametranslation in Hong Lou Meng, trying to explain the reasons why the translators employeddifferent translation methods to translate personal names. All characters in the novel havebeen classified into four groups, which are the master group, the servant group, theperforming group and the Taoists, Buddhists and immortals· group. In the translation process,the translator adopted transliteration to translate all characters in the master group, andadopted semantic translation to translate the rest in other groups, among which the translatorselected French words to translate personal names in the performing group, and selectedItalian, Latin and Sanskrit to translate personal names in the Taoists, Buddhists andimmortals· group. Choosing many personal name examples to interpret the linguistic, culturaland communicative dimensions, the author hopes that translation researchers on Englishversions of Hong Lou Meng can pay more attention to Translation as Adaptation andSelection in the furtherance of injecting a new vitality for translation studies of Hong LouMeng.