Analysis Of Yang Xianyi's And David Hawkes' Rewriting Of Traditional Chinese Medical Culture In Hong Lou Meng

Both Yang Xianyi and David Hawkes once translated the great literary works of China, Hong Lou Meng, and won the recognition around the world. Because Yang and Hawkes offered outstanding versions, a large number of scholars strove to the study of these two translated versions from diverse aspects, attracting more attention of the world to Chinese translation. As traditional Chinese medicine is an indispensable part of Chinese culture and it plays an important role in shaping the characters and helping to weave the plot of the whole story. However, studies on Chinese medical culture translation was limited. We had no idea about how Yang Xianyi and David Hawkes translated Chinese medical culture in Hong Lou Meng and help the target readers understand them as well as read and accept our literary works. To help the target readers understand the Chinese medical culture better and master the specific characters and plot in the original version, the author intends to summarize their translation activities and summarize methodologies, hoping to shed lights on the further translation of Chinese medical culture culture. First of all, the author sorted out all the Chinese medical parts from Hong Lou Meng and then studied the rewriting phenomena among them. The author also reviewed previous studies on Chinese medical culture translation, including the processes and methodologies for reference. Finally, a qualitative analysis of rewriting phenomena was carried out based on Andre Lefevere's rewriting and manipulation theory to summarize suggestions and experience for further Chinese medical culture translation.The author studied Yang's and Hawkes'rewriting from the perspective of Chinese medicinal material, symptom and diagnosis as well as prescription. The study found that Yang and Hawkes offered two somewhat different versions because of ideology and poetics. Influenced by Chinese ideology, Yang was faithful to the original version and retained Chinese elements during rewriting, which was good for the spread of Chinese medical culture and helped the target readers master the specific characters as well as the plot in the original version. Yang adopted similar ways to rewrite the euphemistic expressions in the original version to guarantee the target readers understand the Chinese cultural habits. Considering the target readers' cultural background, with assistance of his wife, Yang also initiated to rewrite the original version according to the target language and culture sometimes. In contrast, Hawkes' version was totally different because he was rather influenced by western ideology and took the target readers'acceptance into consideration. he usually explained Chinese medical culture with words from western medicine because too much Chinese elements would interrupt their reading. Target readers'reading experience was very important for Hawkes and he tried to offer a rewriting to help the target readers understand and accept this story better. Even though there were some euphemistic expressions in the original version, Hawkes rewrote them according to western ideology and gave detailed explanation to reduce the target readers'reading difficulty.Influenced by Chinese poetics, there were more active voice, verbal expression and short sentences in Yang's rewriting. Yang rewrote the original version with technical words from the field of traditional Chinese medicine. These would help the target readers know Chinese medical culture fully. Comparatively, there were more passive voice, nominal structure and long sentences in Hawkes'rewriting. Hawkes preferred to explain Chinese medical culture with words from western medicine to help the target readers read this novel smoothly and accept traditional Chinese medicine as well as this Chinese novel better. Both of the two translators rewrote the prescription in accordance with western ones to conform to western reading habits. There were lots of four-word phrases in Chinese medical diagnosis, both Yang and Hawkes tried to conserve this structure during rewriting to help the target readers know Chines medical culture completely and feel the joy of reading this novel.The study showed that Yang Xianyi's and David Hawkes' rewriting were resulted from their different ideologies and poetics. Yang retained Chinese medical culture during rewriting, which could help the target readers know Chinese medical culture fully and master the characters as well as the plot in the original version accurately. Hawkes'rewriting conformed to western ideology and poetics which could reduce the target readers'reading difficulty and help the readers feel the joy of reading this Chinese novel. Both of the two rewriting versions could help the target readers understand Chinese medical culture better and make Hong Lou Meng accepted by more people, which could inspire the further related translation. Translators should pass the Chinese medical culture to the target readers to help them know it faithfully. At the same time, target readers'acceptance, language feature and reading habits should also be taken into consideration. Only in this way could make sure that our literary works would be accepted by more people around the world.