A Study On The Fuzzy Expressions In A Dream Of Red Mansions And Its Translation Strategy

Fuzzy language, an interesting and complex area of study, forms a considerable part of language and occurs in a wide range of contexts in both speech and writing. It is often pragmatically justified and thus enjoys popularity in communication. Besides, its skillful use usually helps bring about special effects both aesthetically and pragmatically. These facts make the study of fuzzy language significant.As we know, A Dream of Red Mansions is one of the best-known Chinese classical novels in all of Chinese literature and it has witnessed heated controversies regarding the evaluation of its ideological tendency and artistic values since its first printed edition in January 1792. Now there are two successful English versions abroad and at home. One is by David Hawkes entitled The Story of the Stone while the other is by Yang Xian-Yi and Gladys Yang entitled A Dream of Red Mansions. Yang Xian-Yi's translation is most popular to the Chinese readers for it was published in China. In the past 20 years, many criticisms of these translations have emerged and it can be said without exaggeration that since the publication, the translation of Chinese classical works in China has experienced a qualitative leap. Their contributions have produced a far-reaching effect on the development of the Chinese society and culture.In this thesis, we will discuss the translation of the fuzzy language in A Dream of Red Mansions from Chinese into English according to Yang Xian-Yi's translation. As a well-known Chinese classical novel, A Dream of Red Mansions abounds with many culture-loaded fuzzy expressions. Since different languages might express the same idea with different fuzzy morphemes, these fuzzy expressions need to be translated in accordance with the appropriate treatment of the cultural connotations, which requires that their translators have a good command of both languages, especially the habitual usage of each. Generally speaking, this thesis first elaborates the causes of fuzzy language and the difficulties in translating fuzzy expressions in A Dream of Red Mansions, which are caused by the differences of conventional culture, historical culture, religious culture and dietetic culture. Then it applies the theory of fuzzy equivalence in the exploration of the different strategies of translating the fuzzy metaphorical expressions, numerals and animal words. The thesis argues that we should respectively adopt equivalent translation, translation by...