On The Translation Of Clothing Colors In David Hawkes’ The Story Of The Stone From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

As one of the four masterpieces of China,Hong Lou Meng is an encyclopedia of Chinese culture.In the novel,Cao Xueqin used a large number of color words to vividly and meticulously describe the costumes of the characters,aiming to shape the characters’ personalities,or to reflect the social culture.Among many translation works,The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes,the English version of Hong Lou Meng,is popular with English-speaking readers.This thesis makes a thorough study of clothing colors in Hong Lou Meng and those translated in The Story of the Stone from the perspective of Skopos theory,trying to find out appropriate methods to deal with clothing colors translation.The translator usually adopts literal translation strategy when translating the basic color words.In terms of the compound color words and the metaphorical color words,it is found that translating methods of literal translation,liberal translation,omission and amplification are applied according to different contexts,functions and translation purposes.In order to make the target readers have a better understanding of the source text,the translator is inclined to choose translation methods that conform to the readers’ cultural mentalities,especially in the translation of clothing color words that bear cultural connotations.The readers’ understanding and acceptance is David Hawkes’ top concern.