A Study On The Translation Of Some Cultural Factors In A Dream Of Red Mansions

With the development of translation theories people pay more and more attentionto the cultural factors in translation. Translation is not only a language transformationactivity but also a communicative activity that is related to all kinds of cultural factors.The translation activity is not only the pure transformation process of words meaningbut also related to the information contained in the two languages. Many scholarsagree that the nature of translation is to reproduce the meaning and the implication ofa language in a certain social and cultural background into another language withanother social and cultural background.This thesis discusses and analyzes some cultural factors in A Dream of RedMansions that were translated by the famous scholar and translator Yang Xianyi andhis wife Gladys Yang. It discusses the specific difficulties in translating some types ofculture-loaded words and expressions in A Dream of Red Mansions into English, andanalyzes the strategies and methods applied by the famous translators. The thesis isdivided into five parts:In the introduction, the thesis discusses the fact that many translators, both athome and abroad, have noticed the cultural factors in translation or the relationshipbetween translation and culture for hundreds of years. The study on the translation ofsome cultural factors in Honglou Meng has great significance both in practice andtheory. On the one hand it can give a better way to introduce Chinese culture to theworld and make the world know China better. On the other hand it can make sometentative study on the norms, principles, strategies and methods of the translation ofcultural factors. Thus it may arouse more attention in the translation field and promotethe development of cultural translation. This part also discusses the literature reviewof the study on the translation of cultural factors in A Dream of Red Mansions.In Chapter One it gives a brief introduction of Honglou Meng and its author CaoXueqin as well as the English version A Dream of Red Mansions with its translatorsYang Xianyi and Gladys Yang. An obvious feature in the English version of HonglouMeng translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang is faithfulness. Especially thecultural factors are skillfully dealt with in order to display the denotative andconnotative meaning.In Chapter Two the thesis mainly discusses the relationship between culture andtranslation. First it discusses the definition of culture. Then it introduces the five mainaspects of the classification of culture with examples from A Dream of Red Mansions.They are ecology, language, religion, material and society. In the end it discusses theinfluence of culture on translation. It points out that the difficulty of culturaltranslation is displayed in five aspects: zero of equivalent word, conflict of wordmeaning, semantic association, pragmatic implication and difference of nationalpsychology.Chapter Three gives a case study on the English translation of some culturalfactors in A Dream of Red Mansions. The thesis divides the cultural factors in ADream of Red Mansions into five categories. They are: (1) the appellation words;(2)words and expressions related to ancient Chinese imperial examination system;(3)words and expressions related to Chinese official titles;(4) words and expressionsrelated to Chinese ceremonies, etiquettes and customs;and (5) Chinese historicalallusions. Then for each part the thesis finds some examples and gives a detailedanalysis about the translation strategies and methods the Yangs adopted in thetranslation of these cultural factors.The last part is the conclusion of the thesis. The culture is closely associated withlanguage. Language is the carrier of culture. The translators have been always payingmuch attention to the translation of culture-loaded words and expressions in literatureworks. It is also the difficulty in translation. The author thinks that only byconsidering various factors can a translator reach the goal of cross-culturalcommunication. Overemphasizing foreignization or domestication is one-sided andunscientific. Either of the extreme should be avoided in the course of translatingculture-loaded words and expressions. So in order to achieve our goal we shouldcombine different methods and strategies to make the translation meaning-transferableand accepted by the TL readers.