Cultural Orientation Upon The Translator's Subjectivity-Comparative Study Of Two English Versions Of Hong Lou Meng

The translator is undoubtedly the most active factor in translating activity. 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.Hong Lou Meng is widely known as an unprecedented masterpiece in Chinese literature. It is so popular ever since its appearance, that numerous studies concerning it have been done and eventually crystallized into a specialized branch of study-Redology. The two 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 1984s. In spite of the distinctive stylistic features of each version, both of the versions have made a great success and have earned high praise from critics, common readers and Redologists at home and abroad. Their successes cannot be separated from the full use of translator's subjectivity. So, studies of the two versions of Hong Lou Meng are certainly beneficial to the deeper understanding of the translator's subjectivity and cultural orientation of the translator is vital to the exertion of the subjectivity especially for works rich in cultural connotation like Hong Lou Meng.Inspired by the findings of contemporary translation studies, the author of this paper discusses the influences of cultural orientation upon the translator's subjectivity by making a comparison between the two versions at three levels: macro level, micro level and the level of cultural misreading and creative treason. With the unfolding of the discussion, it comes to the conclusion at last 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. And Cultural orientation is a very important factor for the exertion of the translator's subjectivity especially handling the classics which is endowed richly with cultural connotation like Hong Lou Meng.This thesis contains four chapters. Chapter 1 briefly introduces the translator's subjectivity and cultural orientation. Chapter 2 analyses the influence of cultural orientation upon the translator's subjectivity at macro-level in three aspects: language style, aesthetic standards, thought patterns. Chapter 3 discusses it at micro-level in four aspects: the selections and expressions of the source text, the expressions of the target text and the choices of translation strategies. Chapter 4 goes further into the influence of cultural orientation upon the translator's subjectivity in terms of cultural misreading and creative treason.