A Corpus-Based Study Of The English Versions Of Poems In HongLou Meng

The tradition of interspersing poems in novels is a common practice in Chinese classical novels,which has profound historical reasons and cultural characteristics.The number and function of novel poems in Hong Lou Meng are different from those in other novels,and their translation can be extrodinarily difficult.A study of the history of English translation of the poems in Hong Lou Meng reveals that both Chinese and foreign translators have made great efforts and attempts in the past hundreds of years to accomplish this impossible task.Based on the self-built corpus,adopting a research paradigm of combining qualitative and quantitative research,this paper makes a comprehensive and systematic comparison study on twelve translated versions of the poetry in Hong Lou Meng.The author hopes to grasp the characteristics of poetry translation in many versions of Hong Lou Meng,including the overall trend of linguistic features,as well as the translation strategies and methods adapted by different translators.The main purpose of this study is to explore the following three aspects:1.In the history of English translation of Hong Lou Meng,what poems were chosen to be preserved in the translated versions? What translation strategies were adopted by translators in different times and under varied cultural and linguistic backgrounds?2.What are the characteristics or tendencies of the translations of poetry in the linguistic dimension,specifically,from the lexical level and the sentence level?3.From the perspective of literary aesthetics,how are the translated versions evaluated in term of the beauty of sound,form and meaning?The poems in Hong Lou Meng are all created accoridign to characters and plots.They play a significant role in the development of the novel.The author's superb writing skills render the poems an indispensable part in Hong Lou Meng.Through a survey of the translation history of Hong Lou Meng's poems,it can be seen that with the passage of time,more and more poems have been translated into English versions of Hong Lou Meng.However,the compiled versions are the most popular readings in the market,therefore its target audience are ordinary readers,and hence only few poems are selected to increase the versions' readability.when conducting the quantitative research,the author investigates high-frequency words,token,type,lexical density,lexical level,average word length,average sentence length and key words in various translated versions at the macro level by building small corpus and using corpus research methods,so as to grasp the linguistic characteristics of each version.Through a qualitative analysis of the translated versions under the guide line of the theory of “three beauties”,this paper examines how the translated versions did in terms of retaining the unique form and soud effect,dealing with rhetoric devices,conveying the metaphorical meaning of poetry,and reproducing the image of the original poems.We can find that it is difficult to convey the literary characteristics of the poems of Hong Lou Meng perfectly.The quality of the translated versions often depend on the translator's literary accomplishment,cultural sensitivity,professional ethics and sense of responsibility.By examining the translation of poems in Hong Lou Meng,we may find that after over a hundred years of dissemination,Hong Lou Meng gradually shows its true image in the western world;and the coexistence of various translated versions helps to make Hong Lou Meng show its true features.By reading multiple translations,readers can get a more authentic image of this great Chinese novel.The coexistence of multiple translations also helps to construct a real and multifaceted poetic world of Hong Lou Meng.This study excludes the presupposition of subjectivism and empiricism,uses corpus for data analysis and collection,and makes reasonable explanations and inferences based on quantitative data,so as to draw more convincing conclusions.The main novelties lie in: 1)new translated versions.This study,covering a wide range,involves 12 translations of Hong Lou Meng poems,.2)New research methods.Corpus of poems of all concerned translated versions are created,and the translation styles of these versions are described through systematic comparative analysis of data.3)From a diachronic perspective,this paper examines the influence of social,historical and cultural factors on the translators and the style of the translated version,so as to broaden and deepen the study of the English translation of poetry in Hong Lou Meng.