A Corpus-Based Study Of Translation Universals In Two English Versions Of Hong Lou Meng

Prompted by corpus-based translation studies, the study on TranslationUniversals has undergone a rapid development since the1990s. The famous linguistMona Baker puts forward that there are some intrinsic characteristics in the translatedtexts which can be called Translation Universals. As a kind of language variant oftranslated language, Translation Universals refers to those regular language featuresdepicted in the source language or the original target language. Translation Universalsare mainly represented by simplification, explicitation and normalization etc.Simplification means that translators subconsciously tend to simplify thelanguage or message or both. Simplification is manifested in various strategiesincluding using simple words within a narrow range and adopting relatively shortsentences. Explicitation refers to an overall tendency to bring the implicit informationin the original text out in translation which can be realized by adding conjunctions andconjunctive adjuncts, spelling out the optional elements, and adding modifiers andexplanations etc. Normalization is defined as the tendency to conform to patterns andpractices which are typical of the target language, even to the point of exaggeratingthem. In other words, translators tend to eliminate the peculiarity in the original textconsciously or subconsciously.Based on the Parallel Corpus of A Dream of Red Mansions built by ShaoxingUniversity, this paper makes a comparative study on the Translation Universals in theYangs’ and Hawkes’ English versions of Hong Lou Meng, mainly focusing onsimplification, explicitation and normalization. It addressed the following researchquestions:1. Are there any Translation Universals in the Yangs’ and Hawkes’ Englishversions of Hong Lou Meng?2. How are simplification, explicitation and normalization reflected in the two versions? What are their similarities and differences?Based on the two questions proposed above, and via analyzing descriptivestatistics for simplification, explicitation and normalization in qualitative andquantitative approach, similarities and differences of two English versions of HongLou Meng are further explained. Major findings of the present research can besummarized as follows:(1) Simplification exists in both English versions of Hong Lou Meng. At lexicallevel, the Yangs’ version has a wider range of lexical variation and more lexicalcomplexity while Hawkes’ version tends to use hypernyms to replace hyponyms dueto semantic lacuna as well as make an overall explanation of the words in the sourcelanguage because of cultural default. Besides, more fixed phrases and common wordsare adopted in Hawkes’ version to conform to the culture of the target language. Inthis regard, Hawkes’ version manifests more simplification. At syntactic level,Hawkes’ version tends to add more modifiers and put his understanding, imaginationand explanation in the translation. So simplification in Hawkes’ version at syntacticlevel is not that obvious.(2) Both the Yangs’ version and Hawkes’ version adopt conjunctions andconjunctive adjuncts as cohesive devices to realize explicitation. At the same time,Hawkes’ version has an obvious preference for conjunctive adjuncts which can bedivided into three categories to realize explicitation based on their different functions:the explicitation of logical cohesion, the explicitation of time cohesion and theexplicitation of the translator’s understanding. Besides, the optional reporting thatoccurs more often after all forms of SAY and TELL in Hawkes’ version while SAYand TELL+zero is used more frequently in the Yangs’ version with the exception ofthe word telling. Therefore, compared with the Yangs’ version, frequent use of theoptional reporting that in Hawkes’ manifests a higher level of explicitation. Inaddition, Hawkes’ version tends to use relatively long sentences to put hisunderstanding, imagination and explanation in the translation, which also reveals anobvious tendency for explicitation.(3) The frequency of nominalization structure in Hawkes’ version is much higher than that in the Yangs’, which means Hawkes’ version exaggerates thetendency toward nominalization. Apart from that, compared with the original work,there are more full stops but less commas and colons in its two English versions.English subordinate clauses are used to substitute Chinese colons and most of thecoordinate members in one sentence in the original work are combined into severalnew sentences by adding full stops according to their semantic connections intranslation. In this way, nominalization is achieved by revising the punctuation marksthat don’t conform to the target language.With research findings listed above, the present study indicates the followingimplications:Theoretically, the present study has verified Translation Universals hypothesisin Chinese-English translation, which has contributed to the complement of thetheory of Translation Universals. Methodologically, apart from the objective statisticsin a quantitative approach, similarities and differences in terms of TranslationUniversals in the present study have also been explained from the perspective oflanguage, social culture and cognition etc. in a qualitative way, which is helpful for usto enrich the research method of studies on Translation Universals. Practically, acomparative study on the similarities and differences between the original work andits translated versions from the perspective of Translation Universals and theexamples illustrated will be helpful for us to get a better understanding of languagefeatures in the translation of Hong Lou Meng, thus providing a better guidance fortranslation practice.