A Study On The English Versions Of Hong Lou Meng From The Perspective Of Frame Semantics

Frame semantics belongs to cognitive semantics,which focuses on the conceptualization of linguistic meaning.The introduction of frame semantics research can provide a new cognitive perspective for translation studies.Frame semantics emphasizes the cognitive function of experience and the applicability of pragmatics,which is the pivotal to the combination of frame semantics and translation.Translation is not only the corresponding transformation of meaning between two languages,but also the transformation between different frames.From the perspective of frame semantics,translation process can be interpreted as that the translator constructs a scene accordant with the original frame on the basis of experience and knowledge,and then finds an appropriate frame in target language to describe the scene.Many semantic phenomena in frame semantics can be further deduced,but most of them are limited to simple sentence interpretation or regular translation phenomena,such as the research of time and place words in classical novels.Because of the differences of frame in history,culture and region,there are many obstacles in the process of applying frame semantics to translation.This thesis focuses on two questions.(1)From the perspective of frame semantics,how do various frames work in translation? What is the impact on the translation result?(2)In comparison between the two English versions,what are the relevant factors that cause the frame non-equivalence? How to adjust the frames?This thesis takes two most famous English versions of Hong Lou Meng as examples,namely,The Story of the Stone translated by Oxford University’s professor David Hawkes and John Minford,and A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Chinese translator Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang.The main content of this study is to investigate the transformation of frame differences in the translation of Hong Lou Meng.Since frame semantics is a way to understand and describe the meaning of words and grammatical structures,in the frame analysis stage,the frame can be divided horizontally into cultural frame,regional frame,character frame,metaphorical frame,vocabulary frame and expressive frame;in the frameadjustment stage,the frame adjustment can be divided vertically into frame transformation in same category,frame transformation in same level,frame element foregrounding,transforming frame into the frame feature,frame transformation in different category and frame superposition.After the adjustment of the frame,the comparison results show whether the translation processed is more in line with the original text,and the conclusion can be drawn.The conclusion of this study is as follows:(1)The background frame plays an important role in the understanding of the original text.(2)The same vocabulary can be classified into different frames,and can be classified according to the degree of frame participation.(3)Translation involves the transformation process of multiple frames,forming a frame linkage phenomenon.(4)Frame application can break through lexical fragments and act on larger language units.This thesis makes a comparative analysis of two English versions of Hong Lou Meng by combining frame semantics with translatology,the important role of frame semantics is revealed in the process,and it can better analyze the practical application of internal and external meanings in the translation,making the translated text more accessible and the translation process smoother.