A Comparative Study Of The Poetry Translation In The Two Versions Of Hong Lou Meng From The Perspective Of Functionalist Theory

Hong Lou Meng (HLM for short in this thesis), written by Cao Xueqin, is a great classical Chinese novel. The great novel involves more than two hundred beautiful and well-designed traditional verses which not only form an integral part of the artistic value of the whole work, but also reflect brilliant traditional Chinese culture and add artistic conception to the novel. from 1970s to 1980s, two complete English versions of HLM were published, i.e., A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang and The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes & John Minford. Both of the two translators have made great efforts to translate the poems in HLM and endeavored to represent the original beauty in content and style. Moreover, while appreciating the beautiful and excellent verses, readers realize and recognize the translatability of poetry.With publication of the two versions, criticism and researches on HLM translation have been flourishing. Different translation theories have been applied to research on HLM's translation and poetry translation in HLM. However, few studies have been made of the application of the German Functionalist Translation Theory to the poetry translation in HLM. In view of the vacancy, the author of this thesis, in order to make her contribution to HLM translation and promote the HLM poetry translation research, attempts to apply German Functionalist Translation Theory to the poetry translation in HLM through comparing Yang's and Hawkes' versions and analyzing their different strategies, with a systematic and theoretic conclusion as the result of the research. This reflects the author's innovative thinking in this thesis.The German functionalist theory consists of three parts, Skopostheorie, coherence principle and loyalty principle. The core of Skopostheorie is that the translation purpose plays the most important role in a translational process, or "the translation purpose justifies the translation procedures". The coherence principle is referred to the intratextual coherence by functionalists. "Function plus Loyalty" proposed by Christiane Nord makes a supplement rule to perfect the functionalist theory which guides the translating process. According to Nord, translators should take account of the specific feature of original and the function target texts as well as be responsible for the source and target receivers.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the Chinese classical novel HLM and its poems, which are classified into five types according to their functions. Chapter 2 is an introduction to literary translation, poetry translation and translatability of poetry in HLM. Chapter 3 is an introduction to functionalist theory and functionalism in literary translation. It highlights function plus loyalty and concludes that Skopos rule and loyalty principle should be combined to guide translation process. Chapter 4 is a comparative study of Yang's and Hawkes' poetry translations from the perspective of functionalist theory. Fourteen examples are cited to illustrate different strategies adopted by the two translators in translating the poems. Then a brief summary will be drawn that comparison between the different translations of poems in HLM can further verify the validity of the functionalist theory as the approach to poetry translation. Chapter 5, the conclusion, is the summary of the whole thesis. The conclusion points out that different Skopos decides different translation strategies. Both translators do their translation out of their own purposes/Skopos and from distinct perspectives. Yang follows the principle of faithfulness in his translation, so as to reproduce the linguistic and cultural features of the original text; while Hawkes has more concern for the reader's educational background and accepting psychology. Yang mainly adopts foreignization while Hawkes resorts to domestication. They are equally regarded as appropriate translation strategies if they achieve translation purposes. With loyalty to the source text and respect for Chinese culture, both translators have made great efforts to translate the verses and to represent their original beauty in spirit and style. Their translating process and fruits are vivid embodiment of "Function plus Loyalty".