A Study On Limits Of Translatability Of Chinese Folk Wisecracks In Light Of Prototype Theory

Hong Lou Meng is one of the greatest literary works in the history of Chinese literature and is world-widely famous for its rich culture connotation and extremely high language art. It exemplifies perfect employment of Chinese folk wisecracks. Each Chinese folk wisecrack accords perfectly with the individual's identity, parenting, personality, mentality as well as specific situations, making the characters lifelike. But, the distinctive structure and strong national flavor has made the translation of them become one of the difficult points. The two influential English versions: A Dream of Red Mansions by Yang xianyi and Gladys Yang and The Story of the Stone by David Hawkes and his son-in-law John Minford are very popular with the readers and highly readable, however there are also limits of translatability of CFWs. Prototype theory provides a strong theoretical basis for this assertion.A"prototype"is an abstract mental representation, which integrates the most typical features of all members in a category. And the basic characteristics of prototypes are abstraction, integration, priority and expansibility. In 2004, Yang Bingjun proposed prototype theory of translation on the basis of PT, bringing a new perspective to the translation studies. Prototype theory of translation points out that translation is an activity of seeking for the best exemplar in TL in a certain time and space, the best exemplar in ST and that in TT should be equivalent to the largest degree. As the activity of translation is influenced by the objective factors such as time and space, and constrained by subjective factors subjective such as individual experience, to seek for the best exemplar is the goal but may not be the result. The best exemplar is rare. Because of the rareness of the best exemplar, limits of translatability may occur in each step of translation process. And due to the prototypical characteristics of the category members, limits of translatability in different translated versions may be different.The present study aims to prove limits of translatability of CFWs in light of PT. Chapter five, taking the CFWs in the two English versions of HLM by the Yangs and Hawkes as examples, is devoted to the detailed analysis of CFWs, comparing and summarizing the translation methods employed by the two translators, pointing out limits of translatability of CFWs by the translators in the translation process, discussing possible factors that are helpful in reducing limits of translatability. The author of the thesis figures out that: the translation methods chosen by the two translators are extremely alike, literal translation is their first choice and free translation is their second choice; the two translators seldom borrowing English idioms and they both omit two CFWs which contain allusions and homophonic puns. The methods employed by the two translators can be helpful in reducing limits of translatability to a certain degree, but they can not eliminate such limits of translatability. The CFWs in the two English versions of HLM are not the best exemplar of the ST prototype, there are limits of translatability more or less in every translated version which are caused by the translator in the translation process and may appear in each step for his failing to search for the prototype of the TT readers, obtain an understanding of ST which is closest to the ST prototype, find the correspondent TT prototype, reconstructing the understanding of ST in the TL. The result indicates that no translation method is omnipotent and there may be limits of translatability in any translated version. Nevertheless, limits of translatability can be adjusted and reduced for the following objective and subjective factors: the development of language; the mutual infiltration of culture; the improvement of the translator's ability and the enhancement of the TT readers'aesthetic ability.Finally, the author points outs out that any ST is open and ready to be retranslated, there is not the most authoritative version. With the development of language and mutual infiltration of culture as well as the deepening of human being's thinking ability and the broadening of their cognitive world, the translator and the TT readers will be gradually entrusted with cognitive ability to understand foreign cultures and psychological desire to appreciate freshness, alienness and truth. For the same ST, different translators will try to minimize linguistic and cultural limits of translatability according to his own cognitive world and search for the best exemplar of ST prototype and produce the version which is closer to the ST prototype.