Translators' Approaches To Rhetorical Devices In "Jinling Prophecies"--From The Perspective Of The Functionalist Theory

Hong Lou Meng, the masterpiece in the ancient Chinese literature, was imbued with various literature genres, like Poetry, Ci, Song, Fu and so on. No wonder the employment of rhetorical devices in Hong Lou Meng is said to have reached the summit of the Chinese literature. Even in"Jinling prophecies", which contain only 14 poems, a variety of rhetorical devices have been employed. Therefore, in the process of translation, the problem arises as of how to tackle these aesthetic factors in the novel. Many translation theories have been applied to rhetorical translation, yet few of them could give a satisfactory answer due to the peculiarities of rhetoric. This thesis attempts to make a comparative study of the two English versions of"Jinling prophecies"to study the translatability of the rhetorical devices.In this thesis, the author tries to explore various factors that influence a translator's choice of strategies in the translation process, and how the strategies affect the effects of a translation. Through a comparative study of the two English versions of"Jinling prophecies"(translated by Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang and David Hawkes respectively), the research reveals that these translators adopted two different strategies: the Yangs adopted foreignization in order to introduce Chinese cultural heritage, while Hawkes adopted domestication for the purpose of entertaining the target readers. Then the research also shows that different characteristics are presented in the two versions and different functions of the target texts are consistent with the Skopos they are expected to reach. Therefore it is hard to say which version is better.Finally, the author reaches the following conclusion. Firstly, the critics should attach great importance to whether a translated text has achieved the expected aim of the translator rather than focus on the source text or the target text. In other words, the success of a translated text and the choice of translation strategies mainly depend on whether the translator has achieved his purpose of translation. Secondly, under the guidance of the functionalist theory, rhetorical devices are translatable. In the end, the author sincerely hopes that more valuable researches on the translation of rhetorical devices in literary works will be done in the wake of this thesis.