A Study On The Translation Of Social Address Forms In The Story Of The Stone From Peter Newmark’s Translation Theory

As the pinnacle of Chinese classical novels,Hong Lou Meng has more than 700 characters with absolutely complex interpersonal relationships,ranging from high-ranking officials to servants.The various interpersonal relationships in the story entail rich address forms with distinctive Chinese characteristics.It is recongnized that social address forms play an important role in people’s daily social activities.However,due to the differences in Chinese and Western pragmatics,social habits,and cultures,these address forms have posed a great challenge to the translation of Hong Lou Meng.Therefore,this dissertation examines the social address forms in the first 80 chapters of David Hawkes’ English translation of Hong Lou Meng.To that end,the dissertation first divides the social address forms in the first 80 chapters of Hawkes’ English translation of Hong Lou Meng into four categories: the fictive kinship address forms,the names as address forms,the universal address forms and other social address forms.Then it analyzes the four kinds of social address based on Peter Newmark’s semantic and communicative translation theory to identify the specific translation strategies and principles,before further evaluation of the extent to which the social address forms with Chinese characteristics have been reproduced in the target text.It is found that in the process of the translator Hawkes dealing with the first 80 episodes out of the 552 social address forms in the first 80 chapters of Hong Lou Meng,509 social address forms have been reproduced in the English translation.Therefore,it is legitimate to believe the development of the relationship between the characters and the plot in the original novel has been reproduced relatively completely in the translation.In terms of translation strategies,first of all,the translator has adopted 8 translation methods to translate social address forms.In addition to the most frequently used translation methods of literal translation and free translation,the translator also takes into consideration readers’ needs and acceptance,and thus adopted translation methods such as omission,substitution,and intralingual literal translation.Secondly,the idea of semantic and communicative translation theory is fully embodied in these translation methods.The recurrence rate of address forms and social relations between novel characters embodying semantic translation strategies is47.46%,and that of those embodying communicative translation strategies is 44.75%.The findings of this dissertation can shed light on the translation of social address forms in literary works,and future research on social address forms as well.