A Comparative Study On English Translation Of Cultural Elements In Poetry In Hongloumeng From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

One of the four greatest classical books of China Hongloumeng still sets a good example in the modern world.Poetry is a big part in the book,and it covers different aspects of Chinese traditional elements.The most outstanding English translations of this book are The Story of the Stone by David Hawks and A Dream of Red Mansions by Yang Xianyi.However,these two versions have their own spirit.There is a growing interest among translators in comparing these two versions by using different theories.Skopos theory is an important part of German functionalist theory.All the actions of translation have their purposes and the purpose of translation decides the strategy.Yang and Hawkes have different translation purposes,so they take different strategies while translating.This study takes Skopos theory as a framework,and studies the poetry translations in two versions of Yang and Hawkes.By comparing the translation of cultural elements in poetry in two English versions,this study tries to find out how Yang and Hawkes take the barriers,translate cultural elements into English,and what translation strategies they use according to their different purposes.The culture difference makes translation complicated.The translation of cultural elements in poetry is even more complicated due to the unique poetry form.While translating the cultural elements,the translator needs to overcome the culture barriers,so he can transfer the source language culture into another concept or form that can be easily understood by the target language receivers.Thus it requires the translator not only understands the culture of both source and target language,but also has the ability to link one culture to another.In the cultural translation,one can find some strategies to deal with cultural barriers.This study attempts to make contributions to intercultural communication by the comparative study on cultural elements translation of poetry in Hongloueng.There are five parts in this thesis.The first part introduces the purpose and the significance of the thesis.In part two,the author states the categorization of cultural elements in the poetry of Hongloumeng,studies on Skopos theory at home and abroad and studies on translation of poetry in Hongloumeng at home and abroad.The third part is the theoretical framework.The illustrated theories are the basic rules of Skopos theory,translation briefs and domestication and foreignization.In the fourth part,eight poems are chosen to compare the two English versions of those poems,in aspects of Buddhism culture,allusion culture and poetic culture.By comparing the translation of cultural elements in poem,this study attempts to find out how Yang and Hawkes use different strategies according to their different purposes.In the last part,the author mainly states the major findings,and the limitation of this thesis.