Two Worlds In Classical Poetry Translation

Hong Lou Meng (HLM), generally accepted as an encyclopedia of Chinese culture, is the summit of classic Chinese novels. The poetry in HLM as its integral part, is characterized by"Text With Various Styles"(文备众体) in form and"All Things Vie in Splendor"(万象争辉) in content, which can be regarded as a gorgeous flower in a poetic fairyland presented by classic Chinese novels. If Cao Xueqin created in HLM a realistic and romantic world, then the readers have shared the same world by reading and interpreting it. Moreover, the English versions of HLM as the extension, variant and resurrection of the original have created another world for the recipients who are foreign readers with passions for Chinese culture and the Chinese readers that know English well. Up to now, HLM has been translated into more than 20 languages, nearly 60 foreign versions, and its translation study has shown a tendency towards specialization and diversity, branching out into different fields. When it comes to the study of this area, Yang Xianyi's and D.Hawkes'fairly complete and excellent English versions are usually picked for the objective of research because they are the most representative ones.The theoretical basis of this dissertation is Cognitive Linguistic View on Translation (CLVT), which comes from the Embodied Philosophy and Cognitive Linguistic. Such a cognitive model of translation sees translation a cognitive process in terms both of multiple interactions among subjects with differently embodied backgrounds and of a good mastery of the various meanings of the original discourse inclusive of ancient ones. After thorough comprehension of it the translator makes efforts to map and reproduce the original meaning in the target language so as to sketch or depict the reality world and the cognitive world that the author intends to convey. In addition, by taking into consideration all three factors (author, text and reader) in communication, this new model or view ensures the harmony in translation. From the above analysis, it is quite obvious that such a translation theory provides us a very clear clue in terms of its philosophical basis, its view on the nature of translation, translating units and objective, the checking and balancing system for the TLT and subjects, and the metaphorical mechanism in translation. CLVT as a newly-rising translation theory has not yet joined in the main-stream of translation theories but it has opened up a new horizon for translation studies due to its scientific, comprehensive, interactive and harmonious features.The research approach used in this project is what as follows: With the versions of HLM respectively by Yang & Gladys Yang and by Hawkes as the source of corpus, and in the horizon of CLVT, it attempts to make case study of 10 English versions of the poems handpicked from the above-stated translations of HLM as samples. The study is carried out at two levels. First, micro-level (language and effect): Taking the whole poem as a discourse unit, it deals with how the translated texts convey the three beauties in sound, in form and in sense and re-produce the original's style, aesthetic flavor and artistic concept. Second, macro-level (cognition and construal): It expounds on how a translator, by reaching a true marriage of minds (神通) with the author, correctly understands, interprets and then reproduces the reality and cognitive world the author and the original text intend to convey, in other words, it focuses on a translator's cognitive ability to understand and interpret the same matter or situation by different ways.The study of two translated versions is a conversation between two translators, and their topic is HLM. This dissertation, with the approach of combining the philosophical way of thinking and the analysis of collected linguistic materials, and through a contrastive textual study of the two translations, intends to find out how one translator will differ from another in subjectivity, creativity and translating strategies with a view to promoting translating practice to theoretical level and searching for a approach to the combination of translation practice and theory study.