Hermeneutical Perspective To Idiom Translation In Dialogues In Two English Versions Of Hongloumeng

As essence of Chinese culture and language, the numerous idioms employed in Hongloumeng constitute an essential part of this great masterpiece. In view of the importance of idioms to the whole artistic effect of Hongloumeng, the translation of idioms determines the quality of the translated version as a whole to some extent.Modern hermeneutics is the subject of interpreting and understanding and translation in its nature is a kind of interpretation between the source language and the target language. In this sense, theories of hermeneutics can provide a new perspective for translation studies. Its main representative Gadamer holds that understanding is historical and that both the subject and object of understanding possess historicity, and carry with them their respective horizons shaped in that particular history. When the interpreter fuses his own prejudiced horizon with that of the text, he achieves a true understanding of the text. Thus fusion of horizons occurs. Produced in two different historical periods, the two English versions chosen by this thesis:Joly’s version and Bonsall’s version inevitably possess different historicity, based on hermeneutical theories. The author of this thesis attempts to take Gadamer’s main principles "historicity of understanding" and "fusion of horizons" as its theoretical foundation, through a comparison of the two English versions done by two different translators in different times, the author tries to expound on the argument that the translated versions produced in different times naturally possess their own respective historicity.Taking idiom translation as the object of analyzing, the author of this thesis hopes to reveal the literary differences between the two English versions. Moreover, guided by hermeneutical theories, the author attempts to find out what causes these differences from a historical perspective. This thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter states the purpose and significance of the present study, together with a literature review of the previous relevant studies on Hongloumeng. The second chapter is the theoretical foundation of this thesis. By presenting and reviewing the hermeneutical principles proposed by Gadamer, this thesis points out the feasibility of applying hermeneutical theories in idiom translation. The third chapter deals with the criterion of idiom selection and makes a textual analysis of each idiom on the four levels:the semantic level, the syntactical level, the rhetorical level and the stylistic level. The comprehensive analysis of all selected idioms in this part serves as basis for the theoretical analysis in later parts. The fourth chapter gives out a statistical table according to the analysis in Chapter three. It conducts a comparative analysis of the two translated versions from the perspective of historicity of understanding, on the rhetorical level and stylistic level. A statistical chart illustrated in the summary part is based on the table before, which is to be analyzed hermeneutically. Due to the different historical times Joly and Bonsall lived, their interpretation and understanding of the same text must have the historical imprints of the literary environment of their own time. The fifth chapter applies the principle of fusion of horizons in analyzing idiom translations in the two versions, on the semantic level and the syntactical level. The results of the statistical table and chart in this part will be analyzed and summarized in the light of fusion of horizon:there exist temporal distance between the translator’s horizon and that of the original text’s; the translator has to go into the horizon of the original author to achieve a true understanding of the original text. The last chapter is the conclusion, which summarizes the main findings of this thesis and also points out the limitations and weaknesses of the present study.The comparative analysis conducted by this thesis is not to tell which version is better than the other, but to explore the reasons that cause the literary differences between them, especially how "pre-understanding" or "prejudice" shaped in different historical periods of time influences the two translators’interpretations of the same text. The author of this thesis probes into the literary differences and characteristics in the two versions through comparison of idiom translations. Through concrete analysis of examples, the author of this thesis hopes to arouse more serious attention to the canonicism of language in translating such classic works as Hongloumeng. In a more critical sense, the thesis is intended to be helpful for us to consider how to effectively translate and introduce to the world our Chinese culture, including such classic works as Hongloumeng.