A Comparative Study Of The Two Translated Versions Of Hong Lou Meng From The Semantic And Communicative Translation Approaches

Hong Lou Meng, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literatures, has aroused great interest since its appearance because of its unique linguistic flavors and rich culture, especially in the field of translation. And the most famous English versions are A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Xianyi and his British wife Gladys Yang and The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes and his son-in-law John Minford. Different from the previous study, this thesis makes a comparative analysis of the two translated versions using semantic and communicative translation approaches in sociosemiotic terms-referential meaning, pragmatic meaning and intralingual meaning. It’s found that the Yangs employ semantic translation more often to be faithful to the source language and culture, which helps to keep the original flavor of the source text and to transmit the original culture, while Hawkes tends to adopt communicative translation to make his translation easy to understand. A semantic translation focuses on the reproduction of the thought processes of the transmitter, and it’s likely to be more complex, more detailed and more awkward, tending to overtranslate. A communicative translation tends to be smoother, simpler, clearer and more direct. It tends to undertranslate, using more generic, hold-all terms in translating. According to Newmark’s classification of text types and corresponding translation strategies, Hong Lou Meng should be categorized as an expressive text and it’s suggested semantic translation should be applied as much as possible to convey the thought process of the author and the original culture of the source language. However, it is worth mentioning that nearly all texts include all three textual functions:expressive function, informative function and vocative function. And communicative translation is more applied in the translation of informative and vocative texts. So semantic translation and communicative translation is compatible and complementary. There is no obvious boundary between them, and it is only a matter of different emphasis in the translation of a text. Only by combining the two methods comprehensively, can the information and culture of the source text be maximized in the target text. It’s hoped that this study can provide enlightenment on literary translation approaches.