On The English Translation Of Sentence-final Particles In Lin Dai-yu's Utterances In Hong Lou Meng

Studies on the English translation of Hong Lou Meng have become a general trend, and over the years, hundreds of scholars have made investigations into the translation of Hong Lou Meng from multiple perspectives. However, it is noteworthy that in Hong Lou Meng, the study on the translation of Chinese modal particles in utterances is still a new field, though plenty of studies have investigated into the translation of conversions.There exist differences between Chinese mood system and English mood system. Modal particles, unique to Chinese, have no exact counterparts in English. As a main branch of modal particles, Sentence-final Particles (SFPs) are a major way of expressing yuqi in Chinese. In other words, SFPs are the visible mark of yuqi which is different from mood in English. Such empty words are able to play a significant role in interacting with others and in revealing social status, personalities and characteristics of the participants in interpersonal communication. In a word, SFPs embody all kinds of interpersonal meaning. Therefore, to a certain extent, whether the interpersonal meaning of SFPs in C-E translation can be maintained influences the quality of a translation. Therefore, a study on the translation of SFPs is important in the study of cross-cultural transference of interpersonal meaning.Meanwhile, studies on the translation of modal particles at home and abroad mainly focus on discussing the translation strategies and appraising the gains and losses in translation, hence interpersonal meaning provides a new perspective for the study of the translation of SFPs. Besides, value of modality relates closely to power and solidarity in interpersonal meaning. So the value of modality and modulation, combined with power and solidarity, can bring us new insight into the translation of SFPs.Aiming at exploring how the different translators of Hong Lou Meng have translated SFPs with their relative interpersonal meaning, this thesis, proceeding from the theory of interpersonal meaning and selecting SFPs in Lin Dai-yu's utterances as examples, attempts to investigate into the value of modality indicated in the versions of Hong Lou Meng - one by David Hawkes and his son-and-law John Minford and the other by Yang Hsien-yi and his wife Gladys Yang. What's more, through the exploration into the translation of SFPs in Lin Dai-yu's utterances, the thesis endeavors to make some exploration into the cross-cultural reconstruction of interpersonal meaning and provide some reference for a systemic study of translating SFPs.