A Comparative Study Of Translating Metonymy Strategies Of Four Character Structures In Hong Lou Meng Based On Hawkes And The Yangs’ English Versions

Four character structures(abbreviated as FCSs)are a unique language form in Chinese.They are widely used in literary works.The use of the FCSs is particularly prominent in the first of the four classic Chinese classics,Hong Lou Meng(abbreviated as HLM).Since the beginning of the new century,the studies of the FCSs and the translation of HLM have attracted the attention of many scholars.However,the study of the translation of the FCSs in HLM is relatively small,and the study of metonymy of translation,an important branch of cognitive translatology,is rare.Therefore,the author of this thesis decides to start with translating metonymy,to empirically study the translation strategies of the FCSs in two classic English versions of HLM.Based on The Dictionary of Four-Character Structures in HLM(1996)and the classification framework of translating metonymy proposed by Lu,Wang and Qin(2014),this thesis adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the types and forms of translating metonymy,the main similarities and differences of translating metonymy and the reasons for these similarities and differences between Hawkes and the Yangs in their translation of the FCSs in the first 80 chapters of HLM.The equivalent random sampling method is adopted for each chapter,and 536 FCSs are selected from the dictionary mentioned above,with a sampling ratio of 25%,and the corresponding translations of these FCSs are looked for in Hawkes and the Yangs’ English versions of HLM.The 536 FCSs and their translations are taken as data to analyze the translations of FCSs.It is found that there are three major types of translating metonymy strategies of FCSs of HLM in the two versions: whole for part,part for whole and part for part.Whole for part translating metonymy has two metonymic forms: matrix domain for subdomain and category for member.Part for whole translating metonymy includes two metonymic forms: subdomain for matrix domain and member for category.Part for part translating metonymy involves three metonymic forms: attribute for attribute,secondary action for secondary action and member for member.The study also finds that from the perspective of the types of translating metonymy of the FCSs,the main similarity of the two versions is that whole for part translating metonymy is the main type;the two main differences between the two translations are: the Yangs’ version stresses whole for part translating metonymy,while Hawkes’ version focuses on part for whole translating metonymy and part for part translating metonymy;and the degree of translating metonymy in Hawkes’ version is higher than that in the Yangs’ version.This study argues that the main similarities between the two versions of the types of translating metonymy are not only due to Hawkes’ and Yangs’ considerations of the differences between Chinese and English languages and cultures,but also due to the rich cultural connotations of the FCSs.On the other hand,the major differences between the two versions of the types of translating metonymy can be explained by the different ways of thinking of the Chinese and English nations,the different translation purposes of the translators and the considerations of the translators for the target readers.The fact that there are more FCSs with the same metonymic forms in the two versions is also in line with the view of experiential translation held by cognitive translation theory.Some FCSs are linguistic metonymies,which is one of the reasons why there are many FCSs with the same metonymic forms in the two versions.This study uses the theory of translating metonymy to investigate the translations of the FCSs in HLM,which not only provides a new interdisciplinary theoretical perspective for the studies on the translation of FCSs and HLM,but also a test of the translating metonymy theory in the study of the translation of the FCSs in HLM.At the same time,this study is also contributory by complementing the metonymic forms in the classification framework of translating metonymy summarized by Lu,Wang and Qin(2014).