Cultural Representation And Loss In Idioms

With the assistance of Corpus software–ParaConc, this paper has retrieved thetranslation of idioms in the four English versions in the first 56 chapters of Hong LouMeng. Through the analysis of the cultural information represented in the four versions,this paper tends to discuss the pros and cons of cultural representation in idiomstranslation in the four versions, the different strategies of the four translators and thepossible reasons of different translation strategies. This paper tries to divide the culturalrepresentation in idioms translation into three categories: fully represented, partlyrepresented and not represented. Cultural information are fully represented when thetranslator adopts literal translation, with images retained or literal translation withannotation or interpretation, cultural information are partly represented when the translatoradopts free translation with original images lost or replaced, the cultural information arenot represented when the original idioms are not translated at all.This study finds out that: on the one hand, the percentage of cultural informationfully represented is as follows: Yangs’78%, Joly’s 74%, Hawkes’s 65% and Bonsall’s65%; the percentage of cultural information partly represented is as follows: Bonsall’s23%, Joly’s 17%, Hawkes’s 12% and Yangs’4%; the percentage of cultural informationnot represented is as follows: Hawkes’s 22%, Yangs’18%,Bonsall’s 12% and Joly’s 9%.On the other hand, in idioms translation, all the four translators adopt both literal and freetranslation. Hawkes mainly adopts free translation and sometimes adopts free translation,his translation is short and simple; Yangs mainly adopts literal translation and sometimesadopts free translation, their translation is short and simple; Joly mainly adopts literaltranslation but his translation is obscure and difficult to understand; Bonsall mainly adoptsword to word translation and in many cases fails to represent the metaphor of the originalidioms, his translation is obscure and difficult to understand.