A Study On The Translation Of Cultural Factors In Honglou Meng

One of the most significant features in contemporary translation theories is the orientation towards cultural transfer. Generally speaking, there exist two main translation strategies in dealing with the translation of culture contained in the source text, namely, TL culture-oriented domestication and SL culture-oriented foreignization. Domestication means bringing the foreign culture closer to the reader in the target language, making the target text recognizable and familiar to the reader. Foreignization, on the other hand, means taking the reader in the target language to the source text and to the exotic culture, making him or her learn the great differences between source language culture and target language culture. Because of the differences between the two, a translator is bound to face a choice in favor of this or that, so it is inevitable to be inclined to domestication or foreignization when working on translation activities. However, the two translation strategies have always dominated the central place of translation studies and have always been the focus of debate in the translation field.In this thesis, a tentative study on them will be made from the historical arguments. On the basis of this the author will make a contrastive analysis of the two translation versions of Honglou Meng and analyze the merits and demerits of them respectively. Finally, the author will introduce the factors that are likely to influence a translator's translation strategies.There have been numerous debates on translation strategies in both China and abroad. In China, there were debates on translation of "wen" and "zhi" in the era of Buddhist translation, debates on "smoothness" and "faithfulness" in the 1930s, later the debates on "resemblance in spirit" and "resemblance in form". In the West, Nida put forward the translation criterion of "functional equivalence" and advocated domestication, while Lawrence Venuti proposed "resistant translation" strategy and advocated foreignization. In these debates, people have been trying to reach a conclusion as to which translation strategy is better or more effective. In effect, they are the two sides of a coin and their relationship is dialectic. They both have their own merits and demerits. Therefore, we can say that an excellent piece of translation is usually a perfect combination of domestication and foreignization.In the main part of this thesis, the author makes a contrastive study on the two translation versions of the Chinese classical novel Honglou Meng from the perspective of domestication and foreignization. The author not only points out the general inclinations of the two versions to domestication and foreignizaton, but also studies the situation in which the domestication and foreignization cross each other in the translation process. The two versions have different translation purposes and different target readers to adapt to. As a translator, the Yangs' purpose is to introduce the Chinese culture to the western readers as much as possible. They regard the westerners who want to know about the Chinese culture as the target readers, so they adopt the foreignization. But Hawkes' purpose is to attract the public, the ordinary western readers and his strategy is domestication. For the western readers who want to learn Chinese or to know about the Chinese traditional culture, it is very beneficial to read the Yangs' version. For the ordinary western readers who just entertain themselves through reading, Hawkes' version is enough to satisfy their needs. In summary, due to the different translation purposes and different target readers, a translator has to follow the different principles. Based on the above analysis, the thesis points out that domestication and foreignization seem to be contradictory but actually supplementary.There are many factors that are likely to influence a translator's choice of translation strategies. In this thesis, we mainly focus on the text type, the translation purpose, the expectations of readership and the historical context. As long as the translators choose the appropriate translation strategies according to the specific factors, their translations should be judged as successful. The ultimate goal of my thesis is to propose that domestication and foreignization will co-exist and supplement each other and a good translation contains both the two strategies, so it is unnecessary to argue that which one is better.