A Study Of The Translation Of Appellations In Hong Lou-Meng

Appellation translation can never be regarded an easy job owing to its linguistic and cultural features. With the differences between Chinese and English addressing cultures, translating appellations in Hong Lou-Meng may be even harder. By taking a cultural and linguistic approach, this thesis aims to explore some strategies of translating appellations in Hong Lou-Meng on the base of Correlative Theory.The thesis begins with a general survey of appellations, with special concern on Chinese and English appellation systems and appellations. The comparison and contrast between the two reveal that there are similarities as well as differences between Chinese and English appellation systems and appellations, which constitutes the base for the translatability and problems of appellation translation.From the discussion of Chinese and English appellation-systems and appellations as well as the relationship between language, culture and translation, one may find that translating appellations is possible, but problematic. For one thing, the translation of such culture-bound terms as appellations from Chinese to English may mean that only a small number of appellations can be translated with their English equivalents, while a majority of them will be difficult to be translated completely. This leads to the possibility of losing some aspect or aspects of meaning in translation. While loss of meaning, in translation is unavoidable in most cases, the translator still has to make the choice on which aspect of meaning can be dropped and which cannot. For another, translating appellations in Hong Lou-Meng does not necessarily mean that every term should be treated with close attention. Sometimes some appellations can be translated less closely for the total effect of the translation as well as the acceptability of TL culture. That is to say, the translator has also to choose which appellations should betranslated with close attention and which may not. In order to solve these problems, the thesis introduces Correlative Theory as the theoretical base of the study.Correlative Theory regards Peter Newmark's correlative approach to translation as its core. The notion of terms like important and close translation, and several correlative relations in Newmark's theory, together with two other expanded correlative relations, make up the most important part of Correlative Theory. According to thetheory, individual terms can be translated differently in terms of their importance in SL text. That is, the translator should translate the important terms closely by transferring every aspect of their meaning, and in order to achieve close translation, the most important aspect or aspects of meaning should be given priority when loss of meaning is unavoidable. And the less important terms can be treated less closely in translation. In terms of appellations in Hong Lou-Meng, first all of the appellations are divided into two categories, with the first category including appellations that can be translated with their equivalent English terms and the second including appellations without their English equivalents. And appellations in the second category can be treated differently according to their importance in the original text. For those important appellations, the translator is supposed to translate every aspect of meaning, but when loss of meaning is involved, the most important aspect or aspects of meaning should be given priority in translation. And those less important appellations can be translated with less attention.Then, the application of Correlative Theory to appellation translation is illustrated through examples from the two English versions of Hong Lou-Meng. First of all, appellations with their equivalent English terms can be translated with their English equivalents. Then the important appellations without their English equivalents are classified into several groups according to a specific aspect of meaning that should be retained in translation. And the less important appellations can just be dropped in the translatio...