A Study On Translation Of Dietetic Culture Words In Hong Lou Meng From The Perspective Of Eco-translatology

Since Hu Gengshen put forward Eco-translatology in2008, the theory has aroused strong repercussions inthe academic circles. Many scholars at home and abroad devote themselves to the field, laying a certainfoundation for the development of this theory. Eco-translatology is an interdisciplinary theory and it introducesthe concept of ecology to translatology, offering a new way to the development of the translation theory,interpreting translation process, translation principles, translation methods and evaluation standards.Eco-translatology defines translation “as a translator’s adaptation and selection activities in a translationaleco-environment”. Within a theoretical framework of translation, the translating process is seen as the process ofcyclical alternations of the translator’s adaptation to the translational eco-environment and selection of the finaltarget text. Translation as adaptation and selection is the core of the theory.Hong Lou Meng, as one of the four Chinese classics, is regarded as the greatest Chinese encyclopedia. It isnot only one of China’s outstanding literary heritages, but also occupies a very important position in thetreasures of world literature. In addition, the description of dietetic culture plays an important role in the wholenovel. Dietetic culture in Hong Lou Meng not only reflects the extravagant life of the ruling class in feudalsociety of ancient China, but also presents the essence of the Chinese dietetic culture. However, the wordscontaining Chinese traditional culture and custom of dietetic culture bring great difficulties to translators.Aiming at solving this problem, many scholars have done numerous researches from different perspectives, suchas, functional equivalence, dietetic culture, and intercultural communication.This study makes a tentative study on the dietetic culture words translation in Hong Lou Meng from theperspective of Eco-translatology. First of all, the study took The Story of the Stone by British famous SinologistHawkes and A Dream of Red Mansions by Yang Xianyi and his wife, Gladys Yang as research objects. Thestudy uses descriptive analysis method, selecting the dietetic culture words as concrete object of study, as well asmaking a statistics for these dietetic culture words and classifying them into three types, namely dishes, teas andwines. Then, these words are analyzed in detail respectively from two stages of adaptation and selection. In thefirst stage, the translational eco-environemnt is divided into internal and external translational eco-environment.Then the author made an analysis, explaining how the two translators adapted to their own translationaleco-environment from the two aspects respectively in the translating process. In the second stage, by analyzingexamples of dietetic culture translation, the author interpreted how the two tranlators made adaptive selectionson linguistic, cultural and communicative dimesions, and analyzed the translation strategies the two transltors have employed. In most conditions, Hawkes employs domestication strategy while Yangs adopt foreignizationstrategy. This developes a new angle of view for the study on dietetic culture words in Hong Lou Meng, andbetter promotes the spread of Chinese traditional culture to the West.Through the whole study, the author finds that translators with different education backgrounds, lifeexperiences, and ways of thinking handle the same content with different translation strategies and methods toadapt to their own translational eco-environment. Therefore, there will be different versions.