Eco-culture Translation In Two English Versions Of Hong Lou Meng

Hong Lou Meng is a classical literary work in China, which is called the encyclopedia of Chinese traditional culture. It reflects the politics, economy, education, religions and customs in Chinese feudal society. Studies on Hong Lou Meng are so popular that they are called "redo logy" in China, which is very unique in literary history (Cao Xueqin,1987:21). Of course, it has also been translated into over ten different languages and widely spread all over the world. Among these two English versions are well recognized by the public. One is A Dream of Red Mansions, which was translated by the great Chinese translators Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Yang; another is The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes and John Minford who are from England. Because the translators of the two versions come from two different countries and have different cultures, their ways to translate cultural elements in Hong Lou Meng are different from each other:Yangs’ version is loyal to the original text and the authors choose a translation method of foreignization in order to spread Chinese traditional cultures, while the authors of Hawkes’version choose the way of domestication to make the text more readable.The definition of Eco-culture was put forward by the famous American translation theorist Eugene A. Nida, who divided cultures into five categories:eco-culture, material culture, social culture, religious culture and linguistic culture (Nida,1984:116). Eco-culture refers to the cultural connotation people give to the natural world during the long-time development of human history. There are extensive studies on the translation of cultural elements in Hong Lou Meng, but few of them focus on the translation of eco-culture. This thesis is mainly to make a comparison between the translations of eco-culture in two most famous English versions of Hong Lou Meng.This study is based on culture translation theory and focuses on the study of eco-culture translation. The study of translation theories in the west didn’t transfer from text to other elements such as culture, society, history, politic until1970s and1980s when polysystem theory and domestication came about. The cultural patterns in translation studies were put forward in1990s, which was a sign of the origin of "culture turn" in translation study. Following this there came out some famous translation theorists such as Susan Bassnett, Andre Lefevere, Lawrence Venuti, just to name a few, who played an important role on the development of culture translation theory. At the same time, culture translation theory also got prosperous development in China, and one of the most famous Chinese translation theorists on culture translation is Liu Miqing, who put forward systematic cultural translation theories and ideas in his book Cultural translation. Basing on his theories and ideas, this study tries to explore the translation of eco-culture in Hong Lou Meng from a more comprehensive and systematic perspective and come up with some methods and viewpoints on eco-culture translation of the author’s own. Then the thesis makes a research on the translation of eco-culture in the two English versions of Hong Lou Meng in order to test and verify her methods and viewpoints and then improve them, which can make a contribution to the follow-up studies.In order to illustrate this study clearly, this thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter one is introduction, which includes the background, purpose, methodology and framework of this research. The second chapter is literature review, which gives a introduction of culture translation theory, eco-culture translation and eco-culture translation in Hong Lou Meng and their studies at home and abroad, including the achievements and weaknesses. Chapter three is divided into three parts, in the first part, some viewpoints and methods for eco-culture translation are put forward on the basis of Liu Miqing’s cultural translation theories and opinions. In the second part, a discussion and comparison on the translation of eco-culture in the two English versions of Hong Lou Meng are made so as to test and verify the methods and viewpoints put forward in the first part and then improve them. The third part is the summary of the first two parts. Chapter four is conclusion of this thesis, including the Main findings and implications of this study as well as its limitations and some suggestions for further study.