A Contrastive Study On The English Translations Of Address Terms In Jin Ping Mei Cihua From The Perspective Of Context Theory

Jin Ping Mei Cihua,a milestone in the history of Chinese novels,marks a brand new stage that Chinese ancient full-length novels have moved up to.Address terms in Jin Ping Mei,used by people of all trades ranging from the grassroots to the prominent officials,distinguish themselves not only in considerable numbers but also in utmost expression of emotions,which has depicted a vivid daily life of the folks in the Ming Dynasty.As an essential part of Chinese ethnic culture,address terms,to some extent,is a reflection of a nation's striking characters and an embodiment of the complicated interpersonal relationships.Due to its limited space,this thesis takes the first thirty chapters of Jin Ping Mei Cihua as the sample,makes an initial and exhaustive analysis of all the available address terms and classifies them into address terms showing respect,modesty,intimacy,banter,arrogance,scorn and curse.Furthermore,taking the context theory as the framework,this thesis explores how the translations of these terms selected from the two English versions of Jin Ping Mei transfer both the semantic meanings and linguistic effect simultaneously from the perspectives of context of culture and context of situation and therefore figures out the translators' different preference of translation strategies and skills.It is found in the study that translations in Clement Egerton's version tend to be concise and smooth with some omission of address terms or simple substitute of personal pronouns,which conforms to the need of the western readers but fails to clarify one's specific identity and intricate relations between each other.It is obvious that Egerton prefers to adopt the domesticating strategy in the process of translating these terms.On the contrary,David Tod Roy,to the largest extent,aims to retain the cultural connotations and the language effect of these Chinese address terms,making his version a faithful and equivalent one both in the semantic meaning and linguistic effect simultaneously through his preference of the foreignization strategy.The contrastive studies on the translations of address terms in Jin Ping Mei are of certain practical significance for not only providing theoretical guidance for the translators of the Chinese classics but also effectively promoting the cultural exchanges between China and the western countries.