The Study On The Color Word Hong (Red) In The Two English Versions Of Honglou Meng From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

The Classic novel Honglou Meng, one of the greatest novels in Chinese literature, written by Cao Xueqing in the Mid-eighteenth century, is viewed as "the encyclopedia of Chinese culture in ancient China". This novel not only got an important place and reputation in Chinese literature, but also in the world literature. In this influential novel, it is rich in content and in cultural and aesthetic values. Cao Xueqing was not only an unparalleled writer but also an artist in painting who can use the color word freely in his famous work Honglou Meng. There are a lot of color words in the novel Honglou Meng. The colors of orange, yellow, green, black, blue and purple in the natural world were used perfectly to depict landscapes, express the characters'sentiment and so on. All of them give special meaning in Honglou Meng. Cao Xueqin painted varicolored painting by using the color terms and color images, and made the readers witness the erection and collapse of the red mansions.Color has both same and different symbolic meanings and associations in English and Chinese languages. The understanding of a certain color word should inevitably involve the consideration of the culture background this color word belongs to. Similarly, to translate color words, the translator should not only take two languages but also two cultures into consideration. The Chinese language and English language are of different origins. and hence enjoy apparently different linguistic features and cultural connotations. Because of the differences, especially differences in the way of expression and culture. between Chinese and English languages, it is difficult to achieve exact and complete equivalence during the translation. Red has the special connotations and place in China. Red appears many times in Honglou Meng. such as the name of the characters, the places, the dress and adorments. poems and so on. In the whole work, red appears 632 times which can reflect the history of the color word hong (red) in Chinese. The author chooses the first eighty chapters of Honglou Meng as the source text and the corresponding texts of two English versions, A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Yang and The Story of the Stone by Hawkes and John Minford as the target text and collected 232 datas as the source of datas. This thesis analyzes the translation of the color word hong (red) appearing in persons'and places'names, as well as various literary genres. The author intends to study the translation strategies and methods of the color word hong (red) from the perspective of Skopos theory and also shows various ways of expressing the same word from the translation of the two great translators which is helpful to English readers to study the word expression and appreciate the novel better.