Domestication And Foreignization In The Translation Of Rhetorical Devices In Jinling Prophecies

Hong Lou Meng, a magnificent novel in the history of Chinese literature, hasbeen attracting researchers’ attention since its appearance. These researches areconcerned with almost every aspect of the novel, including Jinling Prophecies whichappear in chapter five. The fourteen prophecies indicate the fate of the main femalecharacters, thus they possess an important position in this novel. What’s more, thereare a variety of rhetorical devices employed in Jinling Prophecies, and it has longbeen a big problem for the scholars as how to tackle these elements due to theirpeculiar artistic effects. Many traditional translation theories have been applied toaccount for rhetorical translation, but few of them can make it, thus rhetorical deviceswere once thought to be untranslatable. Therefore, this thesis tries to make acontrastive study of the rhetorical devices in Jinling Prophecies in the two Englishversions from a new functionalist perspective.By the comparison of the versions by the Yangs and Hawkes, it is discoveredthat the translators adopted different translation strategies. The Yangs mainly adoptedforeignization with the aim of introducing Chinese culture, while Hawkes mainlyemployed domestication to help target readers in understanding the novel. As to thesetwo translation strategies, there has long been the dispute as which one is better.Fortunately, the German functionalist translation theory seems to be able to solve thisproblem. It thinks that any translation has a purpose or is to achieve a certain function,and the choice of translation strategies is determined by the translation purpose. Thisthesis studies the main viewpoints of functionalist translation theory and then appliesthe theory to rhetorical translation. It tries to make a tentative and contrastive study onwhat differences there are in the employment of domestication and foreignization inthe two versions, why the translators choose their specific translation strategy andwhether the target texts have achieved their intended purposes. After the research, it is discovered that both of the two versions fulfill theirexpected functions, thus it is difficult to decide which translation strategy is better. Asa result, this thesis finishes with the conclusion that functionalist translation theorycan account for the untranslatability of rhetorical devices and that the critics shouldstudy whether a translated version has achieved the expected purpose when decidingwhich translation strategy is better or whether a translated text is successful. At last,the author hopes that this thesis can provide some valuable suggestions for studies ofrhetorical translation in the future.