Allusion Translation In Hongloumeng From The Perspective Of Cognitive Cultural Schemata

Chinese allusions are brilliant pearls in the treasury of the long-standing Chinese culture. Allusions refer to the fixed words, phrases and expressions about myths, allegories, legends, historical tales and famous figures in history. Allusions, characterized by their condensed structures and comprehensive meanings, are the literary and refined scholars' favour, which frequently present themselves in literary works. Coming into being against the specific cultural backgrounds, allusions "are endowed with special historical origins and are loaded with profound cultural connotations. Therefore, in cross-cultural translation practice, it is a widely-acknowledged thomy problem for translators to successfully transfer the cultural information included in Chinese allusions into English and realize the successful cultural communication and exchange between different cultures when confronted with the wide gap between the Chinese culture and the foreign culture.Among the extant papers that are relevant to allusion translation, some analyze the source of certain English allusions and their translation into Chinese, some discuss the loss of the cultural information in the process of translating Chinese allusions into English and the corresponding compensatory measures, others, taking Bible, Meneius, etc. as examples, illustrate the difficulties in allusion translation resulting from the difference between eastern and western cultural backgrounds and practical approaches to allusion translation. On the whole, these papers make a summarization about the effective strategies for allusion translation through a large number of typical examples, thus providing us with valuable insight into the subject. However, they lack theoretical analysis, especially combination with any translation or linguistic theory and therefore, have some limits in certain aspects.In the light of this, this thesis, on the basis of analyzing and summarizing the current relevant researches on allusion translation, takes the Chinese classical work Hongloumeng for an instance and makes a deep-going analysis of allusion translation in the two different translated versions, one by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang and the other by David·Hawkes with the cognitive schema theory in cognitive linguistics as its theoretical basis. Then the thesis goes a step further to make a summarization about the differences and similarities reflected in their translations, which are the result from the guideline under two different translation ideologies. What is more, the thesis analyzes the intrinsic causes leading to such differences and similarities and makes a comparison between the two so as to find out their respective merits and demerits and then goes on to explore the effective and practical approaches to allusion translation in general. In fact, against the present background of globalization, allusion translation, as a kind of cross-cultural communication activity, could promote the extensive exchanges among different cultures. From the perspective of cognitive cultural schema, the translator, in cross-cultural translation, should not only give priority to the leading status of the source language text, but also play an active role in disseminating the source language culture and preserve the peculiarity of the source language culture so as to provide the target language readers with the opportunity to communicate with and then to be acquainted with the foreign culture and eventually realize the co-existence and common prosperity of different national cultures. Therefore, the author holds that the translator should give priority to literal translation plus note/explanation since literal translation could best retain the linguistic characteristics of the source language and the added notes or explanations could help the target language readers establish new cognitive cultural Schemata, thus facilitating their thorough understanding of the translation and simultaneously introducing and disseminating the source language culture. It really serves two purposes at the same time. Then, the translator could resort to literal translation without any note/explanation or liberal translation. As for the approaches of substitution and omission, the former could only be realized in few cases and the latter is the last choice to make.This thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter briefly introduces the reasons for choosing such a topic and the current researches on allusion translation as well as the significances and originalities of this thesis. In the second chapter, the cognitive schema theory in cognitive linguistics is illustrated in a detailed way and is utilized to make a profound analysis of the causes, processes of the formation of cognitive cultural schema. In addition, the various sources, concrete reflections of the differences between Chinese and foreign readers' cognitive cultural schemata and the influence of such differences on allusion translation are also explored. In the third chapter, the writer briefly introduces the different definitions, characteristics, and functions of allusions and the difficulties in allusion translation. Then the writer makes a comparison of the translation of 100 allusions between the two complete translated versions of Hongloumeng, one by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang and the other by David·Hawkes, and analyzes the similarities and differences between them as well as the causes leading to their differences. The fourth and also the last chapter, firstly analyzes the merits and demerits of different approaches in allusion translation from the perspective of cognitive cultural schema. Then it goes on illustrating the necessity for disseminating Chinese culture to the outside world and eventually arrives at the conclusion about the effective and practical approaches to allusion translation in general.In conclusion, this paper, by making use of cognitive schema theory to analyze allusion translation, not only expands the practical application of cognitive schema theory, but also provides a new perspective for solving the thorny problem of allusion translation, therefore, is a useful complement to and development of the current achievements.