A Comparative Study Of The Four Translations Of Rhymed Poems In Hong Lou Meng

Along with the development of the descriptive Translation Studies, corpus-based translator's style research has emerged in recent years. It provides a verifiable research approach with a quantitative method between multiple versions for translator's style study. Generally, the traditional poetry translation study only applies in a qualitative analysis, but such analysis is for one or several poems. When faced with dozens or hundreds of poems, it is also feasible to analyze the specific language features that appreciated by the translators with abundant of materials, and reveal the convictive outer expression of translator's style. (Xiao, 2009). That means to investigate the characteristics of linguistic elements in quantity and structures. Specifically, to analyze the language materials and expression method's quantitative relations like words, sentence, rhyme, etc. give the'quantity'of the'nature'which can show translator's style in language expressions. The thesis is innovative in that it breaks the traditional qualitative analysis way about poetry translation studies, but attempts to apply the corpus-based and quantitative method in translator style studies. This paper takes 91 rhymed poems in the first 56 chapters of Hong Lou Meng and Hawkes, the Yangs', Joly and Bonsall's version as research subject. Detailed analysis of the language characteristics like: recurring rhymed rules or syllable numbers in each line of the rhymed poem and the elements of language used by those four translators will be fully discussed. Accordingly, the translation strategies and the translator's style will be demonstrated from objective data and subjective analysis.The present study attempts to put forward the investigation from the following aspects:1. How is the four translator's style identified from their translations of Hong Lou Meng rhymed poems?2. Most of the researches on Hong Lou Meng translation reduced the translator's translation strategy, for example, Hawkes used domestication and the Yangs'applied foreignization in their translations. In this thesis, the author holds that: Since Hong Lou Meng is varied in style, does the four translators choose different translation strategies when dealing with different literary genres?3. What is the relationship between the translator's style and their translation strategies? By what standard, we decide whether the translator used a domesticated or foreignized translation strategy?4. Is the corpus-based translation study with a combination of quantitative and qualitative method valid for the translator's style investigation in poetry translations?We divided the rhymed poems in Hong Lou Meng into two types: quatrains and the regulated verses. The paper mainly analyzes the translator's style in three aspects: rhyme schemes, syllable numbers, lexical and syntactic features. From the statistics we find that:⑴In rhyme scheme, the four translators use different approaches when dealing with quatrains and the regulated verses. In this part, the Yangs'showed an obvious foreignization strategy when Hawkes applied both domestication and foreignization; Bonsall and Joly showed an domestication strategy in the whole.⑵In the analysis of syllable numbers, the four translators successfully translated the source language's form and"spirit", Hawkes'translation of ayllable numbers is the neatest, then the Yangs', and followed by Joly and Bonsall.⑶In the lexical and syntactic features, Bonsall's translation is much more longer than the other three, he and Joly both employed domestication strategy. Hawkes used two again, the Yangs'are by means of foreignization. Domestication and foreignization restricted the translator's style for thousands of years, Translators who apply the domestication strategy will show a target language's features, and translators who apply the foreignization strategy will hold the source language's characteristics and the culture features. In the process of poetry translation, if the translator couldn't find the equivalent word or form to source language from target language, they will choose it based on corresponding translation methods according to the established translation strategy, and the methods showed their special stylistic features which are the reflection of the translator's style.