A Comparative Study On The Translation Of Vulgar Language In Two English Versions Of Hongloumeng With Sublimation Theory

The translation research of Chinese literary works has become one of the most important ways to spread Chinese traditional culture.Vulgar language is an essential part of literary works and plays a role that should not be underestimated.The translation of Hongloumeng also weighs heavily on the spread of Chinese culture.Still,few people have studied it from the standpoint of the sublimation theory.This theory plays a crucial part in guiding literary translation.More importantly,as a part of literary translation,vulgar language translation also has been enlightened by this theory.This article takes the vulgar language in the first 30 episodes of Hongloumeng as the research object which all are picked from two translated versions of The Yangs and Hawkes,respectively.Descriptive qualitative analysis of the translation techniques and descriptive comparative analysis of the two English translations are employed.By doing so,the author attempts to explore how do The Yangs and Hawkes translate vulgar language and what techniques are used in the two versions,and what are the comparative results.Furthermore,the author also tries to find out whether these two versions reach the sublimation in the three realms.The following conclusions are drawn:（1）The Yangs and Hawkes adopt different translation techniques when translating vulgar language.When translating the same sentence,the translation techniques used by the two are sometimes different,but both of them use established equivalence the most frequently.（2）Through comparing the three realms of the two translation versions,it is found that when the two translate vulgar language with distinctive cultural characteristics,the Yangs can better express the artistic conception of the original text and achieve the realm of transmigration".Thereby it can spread Chinese culture and customs better.However,when dealing with vulgar expressions related to "sex",the Yangs often choose to whitewash or simply ignore it.David Hawkes can express the original text’s meaning more objectively and can reach the realm of "transmigration".