A Comparative Study Of The Translation Of Duilian In Two English Versions Of Hongloumeng

Hongloumeng is a celebrated novel in the 18th century, which has profound cultural and historical content and excellent artistic achievements. Therefore, it is a great work and has a lofty status in literature field in China. The novel plays a significant role in the study of Chinese literature, art, history and culture. There have been different non-Chinese versions of this novel. The study of such English versions will do good to the improvement of future translation. The study will also be greatly meaningful to translation theory, translation practice, cultural exchanges among nations and the spread of Chinese traditional culture to the world.Based on the Skopos rule of the functional theory proposed by some German scholars, the thesis carries out the comparative study and analysis on the translation of Chinese Duilian in two complete English versions: A Dream of Red Mansions (translated by Yang Hsien-yi & Gladys Yang) and The Story of the Stone (translated by David Hawkes & John Minford). The thesis analyzes all the 20 sets of Chinese Duilian independently presented in the first 80 Chapters of Hongloumeng used for case study. The reason is that the first 80 Chapters of Hongloumeng is written by the same author -- Cao Xueqin, while the latter 40 Chapter by Gao E. Furthermore, The Story of the Stone can be divided into two parts: the first 80 Chapters translated by David Hawkes; the latter 40 Chapters by John Minford. Therefore, the study of the 20 sets of Chinese Duilian in the first 80 Chapters of Hongloumeng for case study will be more objective. The study and the analysis of the relationship among Skopos, the translator's subjectivity and the translation strategies will be helpful to the study of the translatability of Chinese Duilian. Faced with the information loss of the original, the thesis also explores the corresponding compensation strategies.Based on the analysis and the exploration, the following aspects are the influential factors to the translation of Duilian in Hongloumeng. They are the translators'different growing backgrounds and cultural backgrounds; different translation Skopos of them; their different predictions and expectations from the target language readers; their different understandings of the source text. Anyway, the translators of two English versions of Hongloumeng well highlight what they really want to stress and well convey what they actually desire to spread. On the other hand, Yang's version is more inclined to convey the special Chinese elements contained in Duilian such as pun, allusion, Ping and Ze, the adopted Chinese historical events etc.. But Yang's version partly neglects the acceptability of the original. On the contrary, Hawkes'version extremely pays much attention to the acceptability of the original while the traditional Chinese elements hidden in the depth of Duilian are ignored. Hence, Hawkes'translation shows some random factors, obvious subjectivity and clear purpose.The thesis includes five parts:The first chapter is introduction, which offers the theme, theoretical framework and basic structure of the whole thesis. The second chapter covers the definition, the origin, the classification, the characteristics, the beauty and the style of Chinese Duilian. It also does comparative study between Chinese Dui'ou and English antithesis. Translatability, untranslatability and compensation strategies are also discussed in this chapter. The third chapter focuses on the discussion upon Skopos, the translator's subjectivity, and the translation strategies -- domestication and foreignization. The fourth chapter classifies and analyzes the 20 sets of Chinese Duilian in the first 80 chapters of Hongloumeng and does the comparative study of them in two English versions. The fifth chapter is conclusion of the thesis: Chinese Duilian is translatable in meaning and partly untranslatable in terms of form and sound. No matter what degree the translation can reach, so long as the translation faithfully reproduces the cultural connotation of the original text, the goal of cultural communication and literary communication will be achieved in the end.