Limits Of Translatability

Since the first appearance of the great Chinese classic Hong Lou Meng in the late 18th century, numerous studies have been done on it, concerning almost every aspect of the novel. Of all English versions of HLM, it is without doubt that two are most successful: A Dream of Red Mansions by Yang Xianyi (杨宪益) and Gladys Yang (戴乃迭) and The Story of the Stone by David Hawkes and John Minford. The Yangs and Hawkes adopt different translation strategies with different purposes. The studies on the two versions have never ceased, including studies on the verse with pictures called Jinling Prophecies or Jinling Panci (金陵判词) in chapter 5 of the novel, too. These prophecies serve as the outline of the novel and reflect the motifs of the novel. They consequently form the most difficult part for translation. But there has been almost no complete study of the translation of this part. That's why the author has chosen this topic for the present thesis entitled Limits of Translatability——An Analysis of Translations of Jinling Panci in Two English Versions of Hong Lou Meng. The author has adopted the approach of detailed case analysis and textual study to detect to what extent can JLPC be translated and accessible to English readers, to discuss the limits of translatability in JLPC, attempting to find new perspectives for the interpretation of JLPC.The author makes a literature review of HLM and the current situation of translation study on HLM, and then focuses on the theories applicable to the study, i.e. limits of the translatability by Catford, etc. The important role JLPC plays in the novel is analyzed to show the significance of the study on them. Then comes a detailed case analysis of JLPC, focusing on the writing devices chosen by the original writer to obtain symbolic effect, such as metaphor, pun, allusion and rebus. By this analysis, the original writer's intentions are dug out, the requirements for the translation of JLPC are raised, and the difficulties of translation are revealed. Limits of translatability in JLPC caused by both cultural and linguistic differences are analyzed and discussed.The thesis points out that due to the cultural and linguistic differences between Chinese and English, from a macrocosmic point of view, JLPC is translatable, but from a microcosmic point of view, it can only be translated in a limited way. Either the symbolic image or prophetic effect is bound to lose when translated into English. Some problems about Chinese language and culture are, to some extent, impossible to be translated because of the dissimilarities of the two languages and cultures. Therefore, absolute or complete translation equivalence is unlikely, if not impossible, in the translation of JLPC, even though relative equivalents have been achieved at different levels. Consequently, it is assumed that English readers, while reading the English versions of JLPC, may get a fraction of the pleasure that Chinese readers can get reading the original text of JLPC.The author concludes that limits of translatability are relative. With the enlarging and deepening of Sino-English exchange, the gap of limits of translatability will be gradually narrowed, or even untranslatability can be transformed into translatability.