The Manipulation Of Social-cultural Constraints On Translation

As the peak of Chinese classical novel, Hong Lou Meng is honored as animmeasurable treasury of ethnology. Compared with complete translated versions, theabridged ones are researched by few, but they are the indispensable parts in the wholeHong Lou Meng translation system. During the translating process, have the translatorsbeen influenced by ideology and patronage or even poetics of the target language? Did thetranslator wear the "shadow magic" unconsciously during translating process? What arethe differences among different versions? These problems have been rarely investigated.As the culture elements have been highly considered during translating process, theculture turn was formed finally. As the representative of the Culture School, Lefevereclaims that the translation is manipulated by many social-cultural constraints such asideology, patronage and poetics. Based on Lefevere's rewriting theory, combined withspecific examples, this dissertation compares and contrasts the two abridged translatedversions of Hong Lou Meng which are translated by two translators of the same time butdifferent cultural backgrounds (Kuhn-McHugh's1958version and Chi-Chen Wang's1958version). This dissertation intends to explore to what extent these translated versions aremanipulated by ideology, patronage and poetics, and influenced by cultural standpoint.And did the translator change the translation strategy for cultural specific information?The findings of this dissertation are as following:(1) During translating process, Kuhn was double constrained by time and financefrom his patron, and also influenced by Critical Realism Literature, which determined thestructure and length of his translation. Due to the ideological manipulation, Kuhnreformed and even distorted some character images and plots in order to satisfy theexpectation of readers.(2) Chi-Chen Wang's translation was also constrained by patronage, what is differentis that as a native-born Chinese, Wang adopted foreignization strategy in translating somecultural-specific information and made every effort to preserve the original Chineseculture as much as possible.Hopefully, this dissertation could enrich the research of Hong Lou Meng abridged translated versions. Additional, this dissertation could help us to understand the differentattitudes and concepts toward culture between translators from different backgrounds. Lastbut not least, it also proves that translation is not a language transfer in vacuum, but isinfluenced and manipulated by ideology, patronage, poetics and even translator's owncultural background.