Adaptation Theory Modeling On The Translation Of Color Words In David Hawkes' Translation Of "the Story Of The Stone"

The present study largely derives from a question in the appreciation of David Hawkes' translation version of "The Story of the Stone". Color words in this novel, in many cases are not translated into their English corresponding ones but into some other color words or expressions. It is known that quite a big number of color words are employed in Cao Xueqin's Chinese version, and behind these color words, various cultural backgrounds are implied, therefore, this issue, small as it is, cannot be ignored.Constructed on the theoretical framework of the Adaptation Theory proposed by Jef Verschueren (1999), and on the basis of the presentation of the cultural beliefs hidden behind the color words in the relevant literature, this dissertation makes a detailed analysis of the data collected on the color word translation from two levels: language-external level and language-internal level. For the former level, this dissertation classifies the data collected into seven groups and makes analysis of them mainly from the cross-cultural perspective;for the latter level, on the basis of a brief analysis of the formation of these color words, this dissertation proposes the five translating methods adopted by Hawkes and further conducts a theoretic discussion of the translating strategies of alienation and adaptation.Actually, the study of the translation of color words has not been a new subject already, and the study of Cao Xueqin's "The Story of the Stone" is also multi-leveled and multi-faceted. However, this dissertation aims at providing a fresh pragmatic perspective to further probe into this field and as well giving some help to the study of literary translation, both in theory and in practice;and hopefully it can also give a new insight to the study of "The Story of the Stone" by Cao Xueqin.