A Study On Dietetic Words Translation Of Hong Lou Meng Based On Functional Equivalence Theory

Hong Lou Meng is always seen by most people as a piece of encyclopedic work of Chinese traditional culture.Many translators in different countries are attracted to introduce this great work to their own readers.Dietetic culture is an important piece of content in Hong Lou Meng,and is also a heated topic in translation studies of Hong Lou Meng.The author of this thesis tends to apply Functional Equivalence Theory proposed by Eugene A.Nida as theoretical guide,chooses the dietetic words translation in Hawkes' version as the study object,and analyzes the dietetic words translation to see whether the translated text achieves the FE.FE Theory is the translation theory proposed by American theorist Nida.He holds that translating consists in producing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source-language message,first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.The TL readers' response to the translation should be in substantially the same manner as the readers of the SL.This thesis gives a detailed classification of the dietetic words in Hong Lou Meng in four clear groups,namely: dishes,soups,porridge and staple foods,in which they are further divided into small groups.Then the author depicts the features and functions of the food names in Hong Lou Meng respectively.Moreover,the author further classifies the dietetic words according to their naming methods: materials,cooking techniques plus materials,and allusion,then gives qualitative analysis on the dietetic words translation in Hong Lou Meng in each group from the viewpoint of FE Theory in an explicit way.In the end,the author draws a conclusion,showing the major findings and the limitations of the present study as well as further studies in the future.Through the above analysis and study,this thesis comes to the conclusions:First,from the perspective of FE Theory,apart from some special culture loaded Chinese dietetic words,Hawkes' translation of the dietetic words in Hong Lou Meng conveys the connotations of the original text to a great extent,and basically,the translated dietetic words have the same function in the translated text as the original words do in the ST;Second,Hawkes' translation widely differs from the original text,paraphrasing a lot of Chinese culture.He translates the dietetic words in a mother language oriented mind,thus,TL readers can understand Hong Lou Meng more easily.From the perspective of cultural transmission,it is more beneficial for Chinese dietetic culture to be better known in the world.The result of this study will give reference values to dietetic words translation in other literary works.