| Hatim and Mason have afforded the insights into three dimensions of context, namely the communicative dimension of context which is not sufficient, pragmatic dimension which builds into the analysis values relating to the ability to "do things with words", and a third dimension which shall be called semiotic-treating a communicative item, including its pragmatic value, as a sign within a system of signs. In addition to the communicative transaction of context, it is crucial to suggest a pragmatic analysis to value what action is being performed. While the interactive dimension of context is semiotic, this takes pragmatic reading a step further and helps the reader to locate a given message within an overall system of values appropriate to a given culture. It is the perception of text structure including communicative transaction, pragmatic action and semiotic interaction that enables translators to transfer the entirely of the message into their target language version.Combing with Nida’s functional equivalence theory and Newmark’s translation approach, this thesis will establish an all-round evaluating approach to the actualization of the rhetorical purpose of text in translation. Hatim and Mason have attempted to show how translators grapple with the complex web of discourse. Some of the main insights about rhetorical purpose of text shall be highlighted in the translation process, which have emerged from the text analysis that has been outlined. These are essentially communicative, pragmatic and semiotic. From the translator’s point of view, they can be stated as a set of procedures which place the translator at the centre of communicative activity and be regarded as translating principles in translation analysis. Firstly, as far as different fields of discourse are concerned, translation is not one-to-one equivalence; the challenge to the translator is to perceive discourses as vehicles of a culture, relaying appropriate effects of the communicative transaction, which is manifested in user and use. Secondly, pragmatic aspects of discourse are important in all fields of translating, which mean preserving equivalence of intended meaning for intended purposes, including speech act sequence, the cooperative principle, etc. Intertextuality or the way texts rely on each other, is a semiotic dimension which is powerful in reinforcing social attitudes. Semiotic interaction is to ensure equivalence of texts as signs.By analyzing all the three dimensions of rhetorical purpose of text in the two translated versions of Hong Lou Meng by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang and by Hawkes, the similarities and differences in translating can be figured out. The rhetorical purpose of communicative transaction could be generally realized in form and content except for some particular aspects, such as the dialect in Hong Lou Meng, but some efforts could be made by putting the translation in a particular cultural and social setting to achieve functional equivalence. The translation of pragmatic action is relatively difficult to achieve, for illocutionary force mirrors the relationship between verbal signs and their users, covering a wide range of areas, from various cultures to communicative principles established in social practice. Thirdly, the semiotic interaction of text is mainly reflected on the semiotic status of intertextuality. This sort of rhetorical purpose generally could be realized. But some cultural-loaded intertextual references and some unique features in the SL always result in the untranslatability in TL and the rhetorical purpose both in linguistic and aesthetic perspective will lose in translation. Applying all the above three evaluating principles to the case study of the two translated versions by Hawkes and the Yangs, it could be found that generally speaking, Hawkes’ version adopts more communicative translation, while the Yangs more semantic approaches. Both have demonstrated the linguistic proficiency and aesthetic insights, but the realizing difference of rhetorical purposes cannot be avoided for the sake of untranslatability.Whether or to what degree the rhetorical purpose could be actualized is closely related to the translating approach adopted by translators and all the analysis of the three dimensions is hoped to provide inspiration in translation theory, practice and criticism. |
