The Research Of The Words About Food In "A Dream Of Red Mansions"

Among various translations of “a dream of red mansions” in English, there aretwo most unabridged and exact versions, one is translated by Yang Xianyi and GladysYang, the other is translated by David Hawkes and John Minford. They are also themost valuable English versions in the language transmit. Many scholars have aresearch about these two versions. So the research of this thesis is the comparativeanalysis between these two translations. The translators of these two translations are allthe great scholars who are good at Chinese and English, the background of theirlanguages and cultures are different, the styles and ideas of their translations aretypically, so we can get much valuable information about language and culture if wecompare Yang’s translation with Hawkes’ translation.In this thesis, the main research is about the food words in Yang’s translation andHawkes’ translation. There are two reasons to choose the food words as the object forresearching. Firstly, the food words is the direct embodiment of every nationality’sfood culture, the language information which are contained in the food words can showour thoughts in daily life. Secondly, the food words in “a dream of red mansions” buildwonderful scenery of traditional Chinese food culture for readers, so after they weretranslated, they are the crystal by blending in Chinese culture and English culture.As one of the most complete translations of “a dream of red mansions”, Yangxianyi translates the food words precisely, the translate ploys and the structure ofwords are all ingenious and mature. Of course Hawkes’ translation is fine as good asYang’s. But different from Yang’s mature, it is lively and particularly.The thesis will make a comparative analysis from translate theoretic and culturecombine, and it will assort the food words by different translate ploys to analyze,analyzing lengthways inside of each translation firstly, then comparing transverselybetween the two translations.Generally speaking, by researching the food words of these two translations, we will discuss the translators’ ploys and search their classical points. We can find someexperiences for helping us to transmit our culture.