Study On The Translation Of Ecological Culture-loaded Words In Hong Lou Meng From The Perspectives Of Translation Variation Theory And Construal Theory

Hong Lou Meng,one of the four great masterpieces,is rich in content and is known as the encyclopedia of Chinese feudal society,which plays an important role in the spread of Chinese culture.As one of the important factors of cultural communication,culture-loaded words have become the focus and difficulty of translation.Hong Lou Meng is full of culture-loaded words,and most of the translation studies on its culture-loaded words are based on the research of translation strategies of domestication and foreignization.However,most researchers referred to the related theories of translation strategies in researching culture-loaded words instead of making researches from the perspective of cognitive linguistics,and there are fewer studies on the comparison of translation versions and the translation strategies from the perspective of translator’s subjectivity,which leaves a room for the expansion of this research.This thesis selects 40 ecological culture-loaded words as the object of research according to ecological culture-loaded words from the first 80 chapters of Hong Lou Meng and A Dream of Red Mansions by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang and The Story of the Stone by British sinologists David Hawkes and John Minford.Based on the translation variation theory,the similarities and differences between two versions are compared and analyzed,and the construal theory is used to explore the cognitive basis for the differences in the translation variation methods of two versions.Through comparison and analysis,it is observed that both two versions use translation variation methods such as translation and editing,translated narration,translation rearrangement and explanatory translation,but the difference between them is that the version by Yang Xianyi mainly uses translated narration,while the version by Hawkes mainly adopts translation and editing,explanatory translation and translation rearrangement.From the perspective of the construal theory,the cognitive methods reflected by the same translation variation methods are scope and background,and the cognitive methods reflected by different translation variation methods focus on perspective,prominence and level of specificity.Translation variation highlights the influences and restrictions of external factors on translators,focuses on the functional roles of translated versions in the culture of the language translated and the receptiveness of readers and changes the original work by translators to meet the specific readers and reader groups.For the same original works,different translators will have the construal operation of the original works from different perspectives,which brings different translated versions.In the meantime,it is necessary for translators to discard information and highlight differences,which causes different results of translation construction.As the construal of the original works,translators will show different levels of specificity in the construal of the original works based on different purposes of translation,which will influence the expression and effect of translated versions at the end.In addition,different language expressions of ecological culture-loaded words in different English versions can’t be separated from the scope and background of Hong Lou Meng,which explains the nature of translation,namely,“dancing with shackles”.In other words,although translators enjoy the freedom of subjectivity,they are still restricted to the scope and background of the original works.