The Influence Of The Translator's Hybrid Cultural Identity On Cultural Translation: A Case Study Of Two English Versions Of Hong Lou Meng

An important development of postcolonial cultural identity is the introduction of hybridity. This thesis is an attempt to analyze the hybrid cultural identity of Yang Xianyi and David Hawkes from the perspective of hybridity of cultural identity. Taking the two versions of Hong Lou Meng—A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Xianyi and The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes as examples, this thesis explores the influence of translator's hybrid cultural identity on the cultural translation in Hong Lou Meng.It is presented in three chapters. The first chapter is devoted to theory analysis. It introduces the concepts of cultural identity and hybridity, and their combination—hybridity of cultural identity integrated by Homi Bhabha, referring to the relationship between hybridity of cultural identity and translation.The second chapter is an introduction of Hong Lou Meng and its translation study, which possesses an important position in Chinese even in world literature;then it further analyzes the formation of the hybrid cultural identity of Hong Lou Meng's translators—Yang Xianyi's hybrid cultural identity is mainly eastern cultural identity and western cultural identity minorly while Hawkes' is on the contrary. Also the two versions—A Dream of Red Mansions and The Story of the Stone are briefly introduced.In the third chapter, taking examples from the two complete English versions, the author makes detailed comparisons between the cultural translation of these two versions in religious culture, material culture, linguistic culture and social culture through which the influence of translator's hybrid cultural identity is obvious: roughly speaking, Yang Xianyi keeps the Chinese flavor as much as possible, thus transfersChinese cultural messages to the greatest extent, while Hawkes gives up so much Chinese flavor in order to fit in with the English customs, therefore, so much Chinese cultural messages get lost in his version. JBesides the influence of major cultural identity, Yang's western cultural identity and Hawkes' eastern cultural identity also make effect: Yang does not reserve the Chinese flavor throughout the whole version and Hawkes keeps it in some extent.To conclude the thesis, the hybrid cultural identity of translator influences the cultural translation, especially on handling the classics which is endowed richly with culture like Hong Lou Meng.