A Functionalist Approach To The Translation Of Culture-specific Elements Of Hongloumeng

In the present dissertation, the author has applied the functionalist translation theory to the study of the two English versions of Hongloumeng as the main theoretical framework and Peter Newmark's semantic translation and communicative translation as the supporting theory. The main focus of this dissertation is on the important role the translation skopos and translation brief play in the decision-making of the translation strategies and translation methods employed by the translators to deal with culture-specific elements of Hongloumeng. In the light of functionalism, especially Nord's translation-oriented text analysis model, the author has analyzed and commented on legitimacy of these strategies and methods employed in the cross-cultural communication. The cultural analysis is conducted within the framework of the following six subcultures: ecology; material culture; social culture; historical culture; religious culture and linguistic culture. The Yangs' translation skopos and translation brief require them to retain and spread Chinese cultural heritage. They make every effort to transmit and preserve the cultural information in the target text. Thus they mainly adopt the documentary, semantic and foreignizing translation strategy. As a contrast, Hawkes wants his readers to share the pleasure that the source text has given him and his version is intended to entertain the common English readers. By resorting to the instrumental, communicative and domesticating translation strategy, Hawkes accommodates the Chinese cultural elements as far as the target readers allow for easy acceptance in order that the English readers may feel at home because of the minimum or zero presence of the foreignness and strangeness. A qualitative study in the form of a questionnaire is conducted by the author of this dissertation to enhance the objectivity of the discussion. The findings serve not only to confirm the legitimacy of inconsistent use of foreignization and domestication in the two versions of Hongloumeng, but also to pinpoint under what circumstances, for what purpose and to what degree the alternative use is made of foreignization and domestication against the prevailing assumption that the translator should follow one or the other strategy consistently. Foreignization and domestication can be justified in their own right if the translator takes the skopos of translation, the expectation of the readership and so on into consideration. Foreignization and domestication have their values in the specific social, historical and cultural context. What a translator should focus on in the process of translational action is to view the two strategies dialectically, seeking an optimal balance between them. Both the Yangs and Hawkes apply foreignization and domestication flexibly according to their translation skoposi. Instead of running against the skoposi, their manoeuvring of the strategies only serves to promote the cultural transference of the source text and enhance acceptability of the target text, which accordingly makes their skoposi more likely to be fulfilled. To sum up, theoretically, foreignization and domestication co-exist in a dialectical relationship. The ultimate goal of translation is to promote cross-cultural exchange—a long, evolutionary process. In each exchange event of this process, therefore, neither one nor the other translating strategy can go it alone. For successful communication, an optimal balance should be established between foreignization and domestication. This balance or the degree to which each strategy is put to use depends on the judgement of all the governing factors—the translation subject, the difference between the SL culture and TL culture and the acceptance of the target readers.