On Translation Strategies Of Poetry In Hong Lou Meng: The Post-colonial Perspective

Culture, in its broad sense, refers to the whole material and mental production in human's historical practice, but its narrow sense is: a society's ideology and the corresponding political system and organization. Judging from many colonized and weak cultures, cultural communication should be equal. But in fact, equivalence is only their good wish for many historical reasons, both subjective and objective. Traditional translation theory is generally based on a supposition that translation is undertaken between two equal cultures, that is, the premise of translation activities is that the two cultures should be treated equally. As a matter of fact, political inequality and economic imbalance which exist in different countries bring about the power differences between the dominant culture and the subculture. Therefore, translation is not produced as it is supposed to be. That is why traditional translation theory needs to be improved and post-colonial theory provides a practical perspective for its improvement.Post-colonial theory observes translation activities which have been undertaken in different historical contexts from the colonial perspective, and it also pays attention to the distortion and replacement of translated texts which conceal power struggle and operation between two cultures. From the post-colonial perspective, translation becomes an effective channel of imposing cultural hegemony on the Third World by the First World, i.e., translation is a channel of colonization. Besides, it is the outcome of unequal dialogue between dominant culture and subculture.Language and culture are inseparable. No language can exist without the context of culture. Translation is in nature a cross-culture practice. One of its main purposes is to develop cultural exchange. In translating, translators are confronted with two cultures, in front of which, translators of strong cultures impose cultural hegemony on the less powerful, especially the Third World nations. Translation to them is a channel of colonization.This thesis is centered on the two English versions of Hong Lou Meng: A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Xian-yi and Gladys Yang (The writer uses "the Yangs"in the main body of this thesis), and The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes and John Minford(The writer uses "Hawkes" in the main body of the thesis). The reason for the writer to choose translation of Hong Lou Meng as the object of discussion is that this type of Chinese classics contain many cultural elements that are unique to our country or nation. Because of the existence of many cultural elements, classics translation draws more attention from many translators as well as many readers, thus literary translation is considered not only as the exchange between two languages but also as the exchange between two cultures. These two translators come from different cultural background, both having profound knowledge of culture and language in both English and Chinese. However, they each have their own values and translation strategic tendencies in dealing with the Chinese culture of the source text. Hawkes, representatives of western cultural conqueror, have an inclination for serving the target culture and readers both consciously and unconsciously in translation. Hawkes minimize the foreignness of the target text in order to provide something familiar to the target language readers. In the context of post-colonialism, we can not leave the essence of Chinese culture replaced or omitted by the translator in translating but try to keep them for target readers' appreciating a "foreign" text, hoping that we can establish gradually our national culture identity in the world. This thesis is for the foreignization strategy by adopting methods of contrast, analysis and illustration, etc. And its practicality in poetry translation of Chinese cultural classics is proved in it.This thesis is presented in five chapters. Chapter 1 mentions that translation studies has taken a cultural turn, and translation is a type of intercultural communication, and then analyzes the causes of intercultural communication obstacles. Chapter 2 unravels the fundamentals of translation theory of Post-colonialism, and compares the two translation strategies: foreignization and domestication, and finally introduces Venuti's foreignizing translation in the context of post-colonialism. Chapter 3 unfolds a detailed analysis of cultural obstacles in the poem translation of Hong Lou Meng and the comparison of the Yangs' and Hawkes' translations, attempting to illustrate that domesticatication translation, inferior to foreignizing translation, can not fulfill the task of culture communication between western culture and classic Chinese culture and traditions. Chapter 4 is concerned with an analysis of advantages of foreignization in literary translation in two aspects: cultural communication perspective and aesthetics perspective. Chapter 5 is about application of foreignization in the poetry translation of Hong Lou Meng, aiming at a conclusion: foreignization is adaptable in translating Chinese poetry in such cultural classics as Hong Lou Meng, especially in the context of post-colonialism. In the conclusion, the writer maintains that greater attention should be paid to foreignization, which is to be emphasized both at present and in the future because historically, colonial attitude to Chinese culture took a TL-oriented approach in translation of Chinese philosophical and literary works. Now, in times of post-colonialism, it is of lasting significance to correct this tendency so as to disseminate Chinese culture in its original sense, rewrite our national culture and help to promote cultural globalization of all the nations in the world.