Style Rendering Of Typical Characters' Dialogue In The Two English Versions Of Hong Lou Meng

Hong Lou Meng is one of the greatest novels in the vernacular in Qing Dynasty with great language achievements. This thesis has made some research on the style rendering of dialogues of characters in Hong Lou Meng applying stylistic analysis method based on the two English versions by Yang Xianyi (and Gladys Yang) and David Hawkes. This paper attempts to apply stylistic analysis into dialogue translation and language style rendering so as to testify the influence of style rendering in translation to character-shaping and to evaluate whether the two translated versions bring into correspondence with the original novel in language style rendering. Methods such as comparison, quotation, single factor analysis and synthesis analysis are employed in the analysis of dialogue context. In the introduction part this paper gives a brief account of recent study of Hong Lou Meng and the two translated versions of David Hawks and Yang Xianyi and the functions of characters speech in the whole text. Chapter one is a brief account of literature review in writing of this paper which introduces the situational context for stylistic analysis and the definition of deceptive equivalence in translation process. In Chapter Two, it focuses on the style rendering of formal language in dialogues. In Chapter Three, this paper analyzes dialogues translation of the typical conversation in Hong Lou Meng from the perspective of spoken language and the different translation strategies. In this chapter it compares dialogues composed with dialects of Granny Liu and Lady Dowager s elegant language. In Chapter Four, it deals with situational context concerning the changing of narration point of view. In this part, translation of direct and indirect speech as well as the influence of their transfer in different versions will be noted for the rendering of speech style. Chapter Five is about the influence of different translation strategies of cultural factors in dialogue and language style rendering. Different translation methods used in different versions will surely affect the speech style of characters. The last part draws a conclusion that in literature translation, a translator must apply stylistic analysis theory to fully comprehend the original style and bring proper translation strategy and rhetoric device into style rendering in order to avoid deceptive equivalence in the process of context translation. In general, the two English versions of Hong Lou Meng each has strong points in different stylistic context rendering which realize the style rendering of characters speech as well as its lasting charm.