Reader-oriented Variations Of Chinese Traditional Ethics In David Hawkes’ Translation Of Honglou Meng

Honglou Meng, one of the four ancient masterpieces in China, is considered as an“encyclopedia” on Chinese feudal society not only for the depth of its ideologicalvalue but also for its outstanding artistic merit. Thus how to make this great workflourish and welcome in other countries should be taken into consideration. TheEnglish version The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes has won a highpraise immediately after its being published. Up to now, a great number of researcheshave been done on it with much attention focused on the translation of chapters’ titles,proper nouns, poems and culture-loaded words or expressions and so on.In the trend of cultural globalization nowadays, translation becomes one of theimportant means for a country or nation to know other countries or nations. It is a wayof information transmission more than a channel of cultural spread. China isworld-famous for its ancient civilization and as an etiquette nation in which ethics isregarded as the core of its traditional culture. Thus a study on the variations of Chinesetraditional ethics in Hawks’ translation of Honglou Meng is of great significance inexploring effective ways of popularizing China’s cultural tradition.As a renowned sinologist, Hawkes is capable of both Chinese and westerncultures. However, it is difficult for a western scholar to accurately convey extensiveand profound Chinese traditional culture of the original text to English readers.Although his version excels in all other translation versions of Honglou Meng, thereare lots of variations compared with the original when the translator dealt with factorsrelated to the Chinese traditional ethics.This thesis probes into the variations of such Chinese traditional ethics as familyethics, love and marriage ethics, religious ethics and interpersonal ethics in Hawkes’translation and the factors for them. The research finds that Hawkes makes somechanges in the Chinese traditional ethics in the source text to make his translationacceptable to the western readers. Owing to the differences in language, thinkingpattern and culture, the translator adopts domestication as the dominant translationstrategy which results in variations of the original cultural information in his version.Such variations, on one hand, eliminate cultural barriers among different cultures andmake the target text more acceptable, but on the other hand, they lead to a loss ofabundant cultural connotations of the source text and even mislead the target readers toa misunderstanding of the Chinese traditional ethics. Different from the traditional linguistic approach to the words, phrases, sentences,passages and other micro aspects of the English version of Honglou Meng, this thesiscenters on Chinese traditional ethics, depicts their variations in the translation andprobes into the causes for the variations and the influences it has on English readers.Thus, it is progressive in its choice of object for study and the result will conveycertain enlightenment on how to effectively spread Chinese traditional culture.