A Comparative Study On The Translation Of Cuisine Names In Hong Lou Meng From The Perspective Of Dietary Culture

Chinese translation circles have researched the translation of Hong Lou Meng for a long time. In the thirties of the nineteenth century, Hong Lou Meng was first partially translated into English, and the whole English versions appeared in the seventies of twentieth century, which were translated by English scholars David Hawkes (and John Minford) and Chinese translator Yang Xianyi. Translation research about the English version is flourished by the appearance of the two English versions.The author of this thesis attempts to study the translation of the cuisine names in Hong Lou Meng from the perspective of dietary culture. The two complete English versions are the objectives of the study. Basing on the theories of cultural translation and cultural translation strategies, the author makes a contrasting study about the choice of translation strategies when they translate the cuisine names in the original works.This thesis starts with brief background surveys of cultural turn in translation studies and the cultural translation strategies. Under the perspective of the theories mentioned above, considering the factors influencing the translator's choice when they translate the cultural information, the author first selects the cuisine names from the source text, and then analyzes the cultural implications in them. Their English translations are studied by a contrasting method and on the basis of the empirical studies of the translation of cuisine names; the author makes a quantitative study about the cultural translation strategies the two translators adopted. The findings indicate that the two translators show the same tendency of translation strategy when they translate the cuisine names.