Supplementing Rules In The English Translation Of Hongloumeng:A Study Based On The Ratio Of Words To Characters

In response to the call of “Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations”aiming at promoting mutual communication and shared prosperity among different civilizations,the globalization of Chinese culture allows of no delay,among which the translation of Chinese classics is occupying a decisive position.As a unique phenomenon in multilingual and intercultural communication,the textual supplementation ubiquitously exists in both literary and non-literary texts translation,especially the Chinese classics.Instead of being hit or miss,the textual supplementation aims at adding necessary information,therefore,certain general rules and methods shall be followed in this process.However,the point is how to evaluate the differences caused by supplementation between different translation versions? A common practice is to use RWC,which means the number of English words needed for translating Chinese character per unit.On the basis of statistics and analysis of RWC between the two versions of Chinese classic Hongloumeng translated by Yang Xianyi and Hawkes,the discrepancy is amounted up to 0.3,which indicates that Hawkes uses more English words than Yang Xianyi even when translating the same text.Then what exactly did Hawkes supplement,moreover,whether there are any valuable rules can be followed and learned.Selecting the source text in chapter 17 and chapter 53 of Hongloumeng,this thesis analyzes the differences between the corresponding translations of Yang Xianyi and Hawkes and classifies the supplements of Hawkes mainly into the following three aspects.Firstly,it is related to translation of four-character words in the source text.Basically,Yang Xianyi translates them into verbal or adjective phrases,while Hawkes translates them into verbal or noun phrases with clause;in some other cases,Yang Xianyi translates them into adjective phrases,while Hawkes chooses verbal ones.Secondly,the supplementation refers to the translation of early vernacular in the source text.From the content level,Hawkes supplements the information of characters' physical and mental actions,historical background and implied meaning or transforms the subjects to supplement the logical relationship between the original sentences,so as to make the translation more reasonable;from the structural level,Hawkes connects the texts and sentences by supplementing sentences or words and repeatedly using conjunctions and pronouns.Thirdly,for location description in the source text,Yang Xianyi tends to translate the modifiers into nouns,prepositional phrases and attributives,while Hawkes tends to use clauses;as for the subjects,Hawkes tends to choose the various subjects and make more subject transformation.From the perspective of the difference of RWC,this thesis analyzes the differences between the two versions so as to conclude the supplementing rules in translation practice.It is hoped that the supplementing rules concluded in this thesis may serve as a reference for revising,adding and omitting in further teaching and practice in Chinese-English translation of classics.