The Translator's Subjectivity: A New Perspective For Interpreting The Two Complete English Versions Of Hong Lou Meng

Hong Lou Meng is widely known as an unprecedented masterpiece in Chinese literature. Ever since its appearance, numerous studies concerning it have been doneand eventually crystallized into a specialized branch of study— Redology. Thetwo complete English versions of it, A Dream of Red Mansions (translated by Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Yang) and The Story of The Stone (translated by David Hawkes and his son-in-law John Minford) came to the public at the end of 1970s and early 1980s, and then there appeared extensive studies on these two versions. However, influenced greatly by the traditional translation theories, which idealized translation and tried to pursue a kind of complete equivalence or overlap between the source text and the target text on the basis of comparison by putting one text alongside with another, researchers have failed to recognize the most dynamic element intranslating—the translator. Consequently, there is very few research paper todate that investigates the two versions from the perspective of the translator's subjectivity.With the wide acceptance of hermeneutics and aesthetics of reception in literary domain and the emerging of descriptive approach, the cultural turn in translation studies domain, the translators' identities and roles in translating activities emerge from obscurity and come to light. Increasing academic attentions have been paid to the subjectivity of the translator that subsequently becomes a new focus of translation studies. Inspired by the findings of contemporary translation studies, the author of this paper adopts the concept of the translator's subjectivity to the study of the two English versions of Hong Lou Meng and intends to detect a better way for interpreting the two versions.The thesis, by tracing back the various comments on translation and the translator through translation history and by following the shifts of translation criticism, explores the connotations of the translator's subjectivity within the broad framework of modern literary theories and contemporary translation theories, and then applies the development of studies on the translator's subjectivity to the investigation of the twocomplete English versions of Hong Lou Meng. Analysis and discussions are carried out at two levels — macro-level and micro-level — to describe and explain the discrepancy between the two versions from the perspective of the translator's subjectivity which covers mainly the specific translation purpose, the social-historical context wherein each of the two translating behaviors took place, the translator's cultural orientation and reader awareness. With the unfolding of the discussion, it becomes fairly clear that the translator's subjectivity is an ideal perspective for the understanding of the two versions, both of which have been widely considered quite successful yet tinted with distinctive features. The integration of the two fields allows mutual nourishment for studies within the two areas. Meantime, the multi-dimensional and descriptive method used in this paper is beneficial to the healthy development of modern translation criticism and is also good to the construction of a firm theoretical foundation for some deviations in translation.