Translation Of Figures Of Speech In Drinkers' Wager Games Of Hong Lou Meng-From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

The Chinese classic Hong Lou Meng abounds in all kinds of figures of speech in its drinkers'wager games. As the most direct and intensive embodiment of its language art, figures of speech convey abundant cultural information. However, translation of figures of speech in drinkers'wager games has not attracted enough attention of translation researchers. Most of the studies made by domestic scholars mainly concentrate on the transference of rhetorical style and equivalent effect translation. Moreover, even when dealing with figures of speech, scholars have merely focused on the great influence of translating rhetorical devices on transmission of wine culture by listing some sporadic examples. The analysis is not systematic, which shows a weak link in translation studies.The thesis draws upon theoretical support from Skopos theory put forward by the German scholar Hans J. Vermeer in the 1970s, who considers translation to be a purposeful, intentional behavior. Through abundant examples, this thesis attempts to apply Skopos theory and explore how the translation Skopos influence the translators' choice of translation strategies and methods, and accordingly what effects of the translations are achieved during the transmission of wine culture.The language of thirty-one drinkers' wager games in the former eighty chapters of Hong Lou Meng and the corresponding parts in two English versions by Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang and David Hawkes & John Minford are selected as the object of my study. The author typecasts the drinkers' wager games, concludes the phonetic, syntactic and lexical figures of speech and then makes a detailed analysis on the translation strategies and methods, including literal translation, transliteration, transferring figures, amplification, omission, annotation and substitution.