On Translation Of Chinese Parody In Hong Lou Meng-a Sociosemiotic Approach

Within some context, to realize the rhetorical effects of humor，sarcasm, or novelty, a speaker/writerwould temporarily coin new words with the help of a given one. This is usually done by replacing a givenmorpheme of the word by a new one, which is termed “parody”. Parody，as a traditional figure of speech,has been widely used in our daily life, especially in recent years. However, its translation has not capturedadequate attention from scholars. Hong Lou Meng has been famous for its outstandingly trimmed diction,which remains a heat of discussion within the Redology research domain. However, due to culturaldiscrepancy as well as that Hong Lou Meng is linguistically more metaphorical than one can imagine, it issomehow difficult to translate it accurately. In view of the inadequacy of previous studies in the field, thepresent thesis attempts to introduce sociosemiotic approach and the relevance translation theory intoparody translation. By taking the parodies in Hong Lou Meng and its English version by Yang Xianyi&Gladys Yang as data base, the thesis makes an attempt to study the translation of Chinese parody intoEnglish from the perspective of sociosemiotic approach.Sociosemiotics is known as an interdisciplinary theory which opens up a new perspective towardtranslation. It is a discipline which deals with all the systems of signs and the social meaning with thetheory of semiotics. According to sociosemiotics, language is one of the most complicated sign systems; Itsurpasses the pure linguistic level, and concentrates on other factors such as culture, context and registerwhich affect translation. Meanwhile, it abides by the criterion in translation-“correspondence in meaningand similarity in function” and stresses that both verbal and nonverbal signs contribute to the formationof textual meaning and translation process. Regarding this, the application of sociosemiotic approach tothe study of the translation of Chinese parody, which contains a lot of cultural information, is feasible andnecessary.This thesis consists of an introduction, four chapters and a conclusion. The introduction sketches thebackground，significance，methodology and structure of the study. Chapter two gives an adequateintroduction to the literature. It begins with the introduction of Hong Lou Meng and its English versions,and then a brief review of the Chinese parody in Hong Lou Meng. Chapter three explains the theoreticalframework. It mainly includes the origin and development of sociosemiotic approach, as well as the usage in translation. Chapter four poses the major research questions of the study and the data analysis.Chapter five accounts for the practice of parody translation from the perspective of sociosemioticapproach. First, the author stresses the difficulty in transferring the linguistic meaning of parody afterexplaining the transfer of Chinese parody with three meanings (designative meaning, linguistic meaningand pragmatic meaning) and methods adopted. Then the author presents the similarity in function duringthe process of translation. After that the conclusion summarizes the major findings of the thesis and liststhe limitations and suggestions.Above all, based on the theories of social linguistics and semiotics, sociosemiotics has provided a newand broader perspective of translation. With the sociosemiotic approach，we can solve the problem ofcultural obstruction from a different angle，thus further promoting cultural exchange and prosperity.