A Corpus-based Comparison Of The Styles Of Two Abridged English Versions Of Hong Lou Meng

Ranked on top of the list of the four classical Chinese vernacular novels,Hong Lou Meng(or Dream of the Red Chamber,to be abbreviated as HLM hereinafter)represents the highest achievements in classical literature creations in Chinese history,and has been widely reputed as “Encyclopedia of the Chinese Culture” for its rich and all-inclusive contents.Foreign language translations of HLM began to spring up ever since 1736;as far as the English language is concerned,up to now there have been four complete translations,12 adapted(abridged)translations and 32 excerpt translation worldwide.Nevertheless,for a cultural masterpieces like HLM,a good abridged version can serve as an “appetizer” for the Chinese classical literature “going outside”,through which foreigner readers can be ushered into the full-length version,or better yet,even the Chinese original.The abridged versions of HLM by Chi-Chen Wang(Dream of Red Mansion)and Florence and Isabel McHugh(The Dream of Red Mansion)were once known as “Two Milestones” in the translation history of HLM.At present,researches on the translations of HLM focus on the full-translated ones,and the abridged versions have not got the due attention.At the same time,previous studies on the abridged versions of HLM were limited to translation methods and techniques in lexical or syntactic,and there’s few all-around studies coming to the stylistic features,let alone studying from the corpus-based perspective combining quantitative and qualitative methods.Thus this study has both theoretical and practical significance.On the one hand,the study on Chi-Chen Wang’s and McHugh sister’s abridged translations of HLM based on corpus analysis enriches the current researches about HLM’ abridged translation studies,and promotes the comprehensiveness of the study about HLM.On the other hand,in the current trend of “literary cosmopolitanism”,it is of great significance when it comes to the translation about Chinese classical literature masterpieces if we take the abridged translation version of HLM as an example.Based on the modern software technology and self-established small-scale monolingual corpora of HLM abridged translation,this thesis applies corpus search software WordSmith 5.0 to perform statistic,like standardized type/token ratio,lexical density,mean word length,mean in words,readability,etc.,of the abridged translation versions of HLM of Chi-Chen Wang and McHugh sister,both of which were published in 1958.In addition,this thesis compares the plots and events of these two translations to the plots in HLM in order to discover the similarities and the differences in compile strategy between these two versions.While exploring the translation techniques of two abridged translation versions,this thesis also takes the translation of names,toponyms and titles as the entry points to discuss the common and different points of two abridged English version.Through a comparative analysis,the paper makes the following findings:First of all,in terms of overall language characteristics,both abridged versions have obvious features of translated languages.Specifically,Wang’s version tends to be colloquial by using short words and simple sentence patterns which,in some degree,reduce the difficulty while reading the text;whereas in McHugh’s translation,there are more formal words with written style and the sentences vary in length,all of which contribute to make the text slightly harder to read than Wang’s version.It is held that the difference in target readers and the resource language may be responsible for the different styles of two abridged translation versions.Secondly,on the issue of compilation strategies,by adopting the methods of deletion,generalization,supplement and adjustment,the two translations compress HLM of 120 chapters into 40 chapters and 50 chapters respectively.While comparing the two versions in the four compilation strategies on the similarities and differences,it is found that both versions delete the subordinated plots(events)which are less related with Jia Baoyu,Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai.However,in the case of the plots about the small potato,like Liu Laolao,Ni Er,etc..Wang’s version kept them for being subjected to the influence of American reality.For a large number of illusory dreams or mythological parts of the book,McHugh sister regarded them as a part of Taoist theme of HLM and reserved them.Thirdly,in the study of translation techniques of two translations,the research finds that with the widespread circulation of Wang’s version of HLM since 1929,in which he first translated male name by transliteration and female name by its meaning,McHugh sisters were apparently influenced by this method.However,as a whole,in the translation of names,Wang’s version combines transliteration and free translation,while McHugh imitates the rite in western,like “Prince” and “Princess”,taking loan translation in name translation.In addition,based on the different degrees of understanding on Chinese culture,two translations show obvious discrepancies in the translation in titles.In general,Wang’s translation focuses on foreignization’s translation strategy,during which subscripts below the text give brief introductions about Chinese culture to foreign readers,helping them have a better understanding in Chinese literature.While McHugh’s version tend to take domestication strategy,by which readers may misunderstand the story to a certain extent once they lack the background of Chinese culture.This thesis explores two abridged English versions of Wang and McHugh from the aspect of macroscopic language features and the styles of the two versions.It finds out that the two versions show different kinds of HLM to western readers in their respective styles.