A Study Of Menu Translation In Hong Lou Meng Within The Horizon Of Cross-culture Communication

As a famous novel in the history of Chinese literature, Hong Lou Meng is looked upon as the"Encyclopedia of Chinese Traditional Culture". In recent years, many studies have been conducted on the translated versions of the novel. A Dream of Red Mansions, by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang in the late of 1970s, has won widespread acclaim both at home and abroad. In the past three decades, lots of scholars have published innumerable academic articles related to the translating strategies of Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang in A Dream of Red Mansions, among which the novel has been discussed in motile dimensions, such as the poetry, the idioms, the religions and so on, however, the articles carried by different journals on the issue of menu translating strategies adopted by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang in A Dream of Red Mansions are not as many as we expect. As the"Encyclopedia of Chinese Traditional Culture", Hong Lou Meng presents a panoramic view of menu, which epitomizes the extensive and spectacular Chinese dietetic culture. At present, Chinese menu translation is in disorder and at the will of anyone who does it, so it is quite necessary to make a study of how to translate Chinese menu. As a couple, Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang enjoyed a high reputation in translating Chinese traditional literary works. That is why this dissertation relies on the language materials collected from the English translation of A Dream of Red Mansions by Yang Xianyi and his wife. And it attempts to probe into the menu translating strategies adopted by the renowned husband-and-wife translators. It also attempts to provide effective methods for translating Chinese menu.The approach adopted to this research is philosophized thinking on the basis of analysis of language materials. Through a thoroughgoing and penetrating study, it has been discovered that Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang mainly adopted the strategy of word-for-word translation or literal translation, together with free translation only where they thought necessary, to render the dietetic culture-loaded expressions in A Dream of Red Mansions, therefore, it can be concluded that in the process of translating Chinese menu we should adhere to the following principles: firstly, in order to spread Chinese dietetic culture to the world, the strategy of literal translation should be put to the top priority, then the strategy of free translation can be used in the occasions where there exist some communicative barriers between the two different cultures; secondly, different translating strategies should be taken into consideration in accordance with different types of text, that is, the menu with characteristics of the expressive text should be translated with the strategies of semantic translation, while those with features of the informative text with the strategies of communicative translation.This dissertation begins with an introduction of the research background, research objectives and approach, and then it proceeds to conduct a historical review of Nida's translating theory of functional equivalence and some other relevant theories. With the preceded work, it moves to the studies of the characteristics of menu in Hong Lou Meng and the characteristics are classified and analyzed. By the analysis of a great many translation models collected from the Yangs'A Dream of Red Mansions, the concrete translating strategies adopted by the couple are summarized in this thesis from the perspectives of functional equivalence, the types of texts, the subjectivity of translator, and the cross-culture communication, and so on. In the conclusion part, an overall account of this research, including its importance and limitation, are presented.