On The Manipulative Reconstruction Of Lin Daiyu’s Image In The English Translations Of Hong Lou Meng

In light of the three elements of Manipulation Theory,this thesis attempts to analyze the manipulation process of translators on translation materials and how can this kind of process affect the image reconstructions of character.Based on the description texts relating to Lin Daiyu,this thesis tries to assess the reconstructed images in David Hawke’ s and Yang Xianyi’s translations,to offer some suggestions on Chinese classic translation.The research foundation of this paper is descriptive analysis.Through text analysis,this thesis compares the two translated versions with the original texts on looks,clothes,character,words and actions and puts out argument at the same time.This social ideology and the sponsors of Yang have largely affected his work.Yang has chosen a rather conservative and standardized way to translate,which was fully showed in details,such as the re-write of contents relating traditional federal ideas,the strong words used in describing contents relating to love affairs;On wording and sentences,Yang has chosen literal translation.As a result,the images presented in Yang’s work are less lively and less colorful compared with the original book and less attractive neither.On the contrary,Hawkes’ s work was manipulated less than Yang’s and he has applied a more flexible translation strategy,the image presented in his work is more diversified and presentable.Nevertheless,one feature of Hawkes’ s work is that many culture-loaded words in the original book have been converted to western culture loaded words,and that has made the image somehow shifted.The creativity of this paper is the combination of general social background analysis and detailed text analysis,which in some degree promoted translation practice.