On The Translatability Of Cultural Elements And The Choice Of Strategy

The novel, Hong Lou Meng, since it was created, has attracted so much attention around its mother land and now around the world. So much research and studies have been done on it that the so-called Redology has been developed. Many of these studies are related to Chinese traditional culture which is so massive and complicated. Many redologists have written various books on Hong Lou Meng and Chinese culture,some about Chinese religion, some Chinese poem, some Chinese architecture, some Chinese taboo, some even about Chinese wine custom and so on. It was regarded as the peak of Chinese classical novel, therefore many translators have been trying to introduce it to other culture groups for two centuries. The most difficult thing for them is how to introduce Chinese culture which is so distinct from western culture. According to Eugene A. Nida, culture can be divided into five groups: linguistic culture, ecological culture, material culture, social culture, and religious culture. In this thesis, the writer has applied this cultural perspective to the study of the translation of the cultural elements in the two English versions of Hong Lou Meng. The main focus of this paper is on the combination of domestication and foreignization to raise the translatability of the cultural elements in this novel. Hence, the writer points out that the translatability of the culture elements can be raised greatly by the combination of domestication and foreignization strategies.The first chapter of the thesis is an introduction; and the second chapter focuses on the relation between Hong Lou Meng and Chinese culture. Chapter three is literature review of the translation and culture, a discussion about the translatability of cultural elements; and chapter four sees an analysis of the translation of culture in the two versions of Hong Lou Meng. The analysis is based on the aforementioned Nida's theory about culture, and is conducted from the above-mentioned five aspects. Then the conclusion is followed.