《红楼梦》章回题目英译的归化与异化-杨霍译本对比研究.pdf

华北电力大学（保定） 硕士学位论文 红楼梦章回题目英译的归化与异化-杨霍译本对比研究 姓名：崔玉红 申请学位级别：硕士 专业：英语语言文学 指导教师：祖林 2011-03 摘 要 i 摘 要 翻译是不同文化之间交流的重要途径。在翻译过程中，译者对源 语文化和目的语文化因素的不同态度形成了异化和归化两种不同的翻 译策略。前者有助于源语文化的保持和传播，而后者则可能导致源语 文化的扭曲甚至消失。 红楼梦作为中国文化的集大成者，几乎涉及 到了中国传统文化的所有层面。如何在翻译红楼梦过程中最大限 度地保留优秀的中国传统文化是红楼梦给译者的巨大挑战。 本文采用语料对比以及实例分析的方法，参照王宁的相关文化理 论，分别从生产生活文化，制度文化，思想观念与精神文化以及语言 文字文化等四个角度对比分析了红楼梦杨译本和霍译本中对章回 题目英译的不同翻译策略取向。通过对比分析，作者发现在翻译红 楼梦章回题目过程中，杨译本 更多地采用了异化的翻译策略，并且 尽可能多地保持和向外传播了中国优秀的传统文化，而霍 译 本则更多 地使用了归化的翻译策略，导致中国传统文化因素不同程度的流失。 对红楼梦杨译本和霍译本中章回题目英译的对比分析是对以往两 译本对比分析的重要补充。对两译本中两 种 翻 译策略尤其是归化策略 的具体分析能够激发读者和译者保持源语文化尤其是中国的优秀传统 文化的意识，从而在以后的翻译工作中尽可能多地以源语文化为出发 点，防止源语文化的扭曲和流失，对保持文化多样性有重大的意义。 关键词： 红楼梦章回题目；归化；异化；对比分析 abstract ii abstract translation is an essential way in the communication among different cultures. during the translation process, translators different attitudes towards the cultural elements of the source language and the target language bring the two translation strategies foreignization and domestication into existence. the former one helps to maintain and spread the source language culture, while the latter one may result in the distortion or disappearance of the source language culture. as the greatest of all chinese classics, hongloumeng involves almost all the aspects of chinese traditional culture. and how to maintain the excellence of traditional chinese culture to the maximum in translating hongloumeng is a great challenge to the translators. through the linguistic material comparative method and example analysis method, and based on the relevant cultural theories by wang ning, this thesis has compared the different translation strategic tendencies of the yangs translation and hawkes translation in translating the chapter titles of hongloumeng from the aspects of production and life culture, system culture, ideological concept and spiritual culture as well as linguistic culture. through comparative analysis, the author finds that in translating the chapter titles of hongloumeng, the yangs prefer foreignization to domestication and maintain and spread the excellence of traditional chinese culture; while the hawkes version prefers domestication as the main strategy, which may lead to the cultural loss to some extent. the comparative analysis of the two translation versions of hongloumeng from the perspective of chapter titles performs as an essential supplement to the previous comparison of the two versions. the detailed analysis of the two strategies, especially the domestication strategy in the two versions can inspire the translators with the awareness of keeping the source language culture, especially the excellence of traditional chinese culture, then make them be source language- oriented as much as possible in their translation. as a result, the source language culture can not be distorted or lost, which has a great significance to the cultural diversity. keywords: chapter titles of hongloumeng; domestication; foreignization; comparative analysis 华北电力大学硕士学位论文原创性声明 本 人 郑重声明：此处所 提交的硕士学位论文 章回题目 英译的归化与异化杨霍译本对比研究 ，是本人在导师指导下，在华 北电力大学攻读硕士学位期间独立进行研究工作所取得的成果。据本 人所知，论文中除已注明部分外不包含他人已发表或撰写过的研究成 果。对本文的研究工作做出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明 确方式注明。本声明的法律结果将完全由本人承担。 作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 华北电力大学硕士学位论文使用授权书 章回题目英译的归化与异化 杨霍译本对比研究系 本人在华北电力大学攻读硕士学位期间在导师指导下完成的硕士学位 论文。本论文的研究成果归华北电力大学所有，本论文的研究内容不 得以其它单位的名义发表。本人完全了解华北电力大学关于保存、使 用学位论文的规定，同意学校保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文 的复印件和电子版本，同意学校将学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有 关数据库进行检索，允许论文被查阅和借阅。本人授权华北电力大学， 可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存、可以公布论文的全部或 部分内容。 本学位论文属于(请在以下相应方框内打“”)： 保密，在 年解密后适用本授权书 不保密 作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 导师签名： 日期： 年 月 日 华北电力大学硕士学位论文 1 chapter one introduction 1.1 general information of hongloumeng and its translated versions hongloumeng, written in the 18th century, is regarded as an encyclopedia of chinese cultures for its profound cultural connotations and distinguished artistic achievements. it has been attracting more and more scholars and readers both at home and abroad since it came out to the world. from the sentence “ although someone has read almost all the chinese poetries and literature works, it is in vain if he does not talk about hongloumeng” , we can see the great popularity of this novel. and as a masterpiece and one of the four classic novels in china, it also deserves the “ encyclopedia” title, for it involves nearly every aspect of chinese traditional culture, including marriage, religion, education, politics, food, entertainment, poetry, funeral, law, the role of women, etiquette, social hierarchy and relationship and so on. containing the very essence of chinese culture, it is one of those rare huge books which are always full of charms to its readers. as one of the chinese greatest classic works, hongloumeng has been translated into english and some other languages. the earliest english translation could be found at the beginning of the 19th century in a letter written by an english priest called robert morrison ( 范 圣 宇,2004). in the following decades there appeared some other translations, mainly dealing with several chapters of hongloumeng. till 1973, penguin books limited group published the first complete english version of the novel. it was translated by david hawkes, a professor of chinese at oxford university, and his son- in- law john minford (the first 80 chapters was translated by hawkes). they titled their translation the story of the stone. and later on there came another popular english version published in beijing under the title of a dream of red mansions by yang xianyi and his wife gladys yang. both of these two versions are highly praised. hawkes translation is regarded as one of the best modern translation works by newspapers and the yangs as the most complete and accurate one. the yangs translation faithfully bases on the original novel and is outstanding with its beautiful language and the translators serious 华北电力大学硕士学位论文 2 attitudes. professor zhou (1994:276) makes his comments on the two versions as follows: “ the version by david hawkes is distinguished for its elegance, while the yangs is remarkable for its accuracyif people read them together, those who are unable to appreciate the original will acquire the real and complete picture about this novel” . in this paper, one point which should be made clear is that the hawkes version not only refers to the first 80 chapters translated by hawkes, it also includes the last 40 chapters translated by minford. what will be compared in this paper is the two versions, not only the yangs and hawkes translation. 1.2 introduction to chapter titles the novel with chapters is the main stream of classical novels in chinese literature history. this kind of novel represents the glorious achievement of novels, and the four chinese greatest classic works are written in this form. the novel is usually divided into chapters with titles followed by the main part of the stories in the corresponding part. this kind of novel form can be traced back to the song dynasty, and later it became a kind of fixed structure. such division stems from the writing of historical work and adjusts to readers reading needs because the task of reading a long novel in one breath is usually tough. chapter titles become indispensable in this kind of novel structure because they are used to introduce and proclaim the main contents of the chapters. in form, every title is composed of two antithetical couplets, and each couplet is with eight characters. the two couplets form a neat and tidy structure to hint the main ideas of the corresponding chapter. as for hongloumeng, the general features of its chapter titles are displayed in the following part: firstly, there are two couplets in every title, and there is no corresponding form in english because no punctuations or linking words which are used to show the formal cohesion can be found in the couplets; secondly, the structure of the chapter titles is uniform in hongloumeng, for each title is composed of two couplets with eight characters without any exception; thirdly, the words in the couplets are usually arranged by way of antithesis to keep the two parts of the title in balanced structure, which is the universal phenomenon in the titles. the novels with chapter titles take an essential part in the chinese typical novel forms which can not be neglected when they are translated 华北电力大学硕士学位论文 3 into the other languages. 1.3 organization of the thesis altogether, there are six chapters in this thesis: chapter one gives the brief introduction to hongloumeng, its translation versions and the general information of chapter titles. and the organization of the thesis is also included in this chapter. chapter two is the literature review of the researches on hongloumeng, its translation versions, chapter titles as well as domestication and foreignization. chapter three gives the theoretical background of the thesis which includes the general information of culture and domestication and foreignization. chapter four is the main part of this thesis, in which the author compares the two different strategies from the perspective of culture through analyzing the translations of the chapter titles of hongloumeng, from which the translation styles of the two versions can be further cleared. after analyzing the differences of strategy choices, the author analyzes the comparative result in chapter five, which includes the reasons determining their choices and the value of this comparison. chapter six serves as the conclusion of the thesis, and some limitations of this study are also mentioned. 华北电力大学硕士学位论文 4 chapter two literature review 2.1 studies on hongloumeng s chinese version actually, the studies on hongloumeng started since the first day of its publication, and the great popularity has made the term “ redology” come into being, which can be divided into three stages. the first stage is from the ganjia years in the qing dynasty to 1921,which is called the “ old redology” without too many great achievements. the representative scholars are wang guowei, wang mengruan and cai ping an. the second period is from 1921 to 1954, which is called the “ new redology” period. in this period, two kinds of studies are important, one is the criticism with the representatives as lu xun, zhang tianyi, wang kunlun, and the other one is confirmation with hu shi, yu boping and zhou ruchang. the third period is from 1954 until nowadays, which is called the “ contemporary redology” period in which many masterpieces have come into being, and many of them are of great importance, such as li xifang, lan ling, he qifang, feng qiyong, zhou shaoling, zhou ruchang, lv qixiang, etc in a word, the studies on this novel have never stopped from its beginning until now, and with the development of the researches, more and more aspects have been involved. 2.2 studies on hongloumeng s translated versions as the summit of classical novels in china, hongloumeng also enjoys a high reputation throughout the world. up to now, hongloumeng has been translated into about 15 different languages, in which the most outstanding and influential versions are the two complete versions, namely, a dream of red mansions translated by chinese renowned scholar yang xianyi and his wife gladys yang and the story of the stone by british sinologist david hawkes and his son- in- law john minford. the two versions have attracted thousands of readers at home and abroad. they are proved successful and are highly praised by the translators, critics as well as readers. it is said that since the first volume the golden days translated by 华北电力大学硕士学位论文 5 david hawkes came into being in 1973, the studies on hongloumeng s translated version began. and according to a rough statistics, the number of various critical and study works and articles on the two complete english versions of hongloumeng amounts to over 100 pieces (刘 士 聪,2002). during this period of time, there are also masterpieces of the researches on hongloumeng s translated versions, such as the translation comparison of the poems in hongloumeng by wang hongyin. the researches on the translated versions of hongloumeng include many fields, it includes the researches on the strategies, such as chen hongwei (2002), wang hongyin (2002), cui yonglu (2002), zhang kun (2002), wei fang (2002), and ma hongjun (2002), the researches on the language and discourse, such as xia tingde (2002), xiao weiqing (2002), li meng, cheng tao (2002), liu yanli (2002), researches on the literature and rhetoric as well as the culture orientation, such as zhang yingxian (2002), liu hailing (2002), zhao lizhu (2002) and hong tao (2002). they compare the two versions from the perspective of semiotics, buddha, alcohol, and language taboos, and show the different culture orientation of the yangs and david hawkes. 2.3 studies on the chapter titles of hongloumeng it is definitely true that so many researches have been done on the translation versions of hongloumeng. however, as for the translated chapter titles, there are only a few can be found available. wang hongyin (2002) makes a comparative study of the two english versions by hawkes and yang xianyi respectively, concerning their dealings with the ten rhetorical devices involved in the 120 couplet chapter titles in hongloumeng, in an attempt to find out the arts of translation of the chapter titles of classical chinese novels in particular, as well as the translatability and limitation of chinese to english translation in general. yu yuan (2008) makes a comparative study of the two complete translated versions of hongloumeng to indicate the superiority of semantic translation to communicative translation in translating the ancient chinese literary works. zhang jie (2006) analyses the functional equivalence in sound, form and conception in translation of the couplet chapter titles in hongloumeng with some examples from the two translation versions by the yangs and hawkes, and states that translators should always take aesthetic value of 华北电力大学硕士学位论文 6 the translated text into consideration and recreate the aesthetic factors in the process of translation, and only in this way can they create good translations. zhang aihui (2008) compares the two translation versions from the perspective of theme and rheme, and tries to find the further reasons through the comparison. xie ming (2002) just talks about the rhetoric devices of the chapter titles of the chinese version, without discussing the translation versions. zheng hong (2000) compares the translated chapter tit les of the two complete versions from a general level without details, and only chooses some of the aspects. zhang aihui (2008) aims to probe into the influence of culture and collective psychology on the building of rhetorical psychological system and on the translation of the rhetorical texts. guo yun (2006) makes comparison and contrast between the two translation versions and intends to discuss the features of the style of the chapter titles of hongloumeng and explore the translation of this language form. 2.4 researches on domestication and foreignization the debate on domestication and foreignization has been existing for a long time. domestication- oriented translation in the west started in the 17th century. nida s “ dynamic equivalence” theory appeared in 1964 made him the theoretic representative of domestication school. nida s principle of natural equivalence displays his ideal of domesticating translation (nida it is shared; it is based on symbols; it is dynamic; it is an integrated system (samovar, l.a., porter, r.e. the intermediate layer, or institutional culture, which refers to the influence of human activities on the society, such as social systems, religious systems, ritual systems, educational systems, kinship systems and language; and the deeper layer, or mental culture, such as people s mentality and behaviors, their thought patterns, beliefs, values, aesthetic tastes (chen hongwei,1999). wang ning (2000) divides culture into four types which includes “ production and life culture” , “ system culture” , “ideological concept and spiritual culture” and “ linguistic culture” . in the following parts, this paper will discuss the translation strategy choices of the yangs and hawkes in details from the perspective of the major elements of the four aspects mentioned above. and through the comparison, the author will find out the chinese culture neglect in the domestication strategy and defend our excellent traditional culture. 3.1.3 relationship among language, culture and translation culture and language are closely interrelated with each other. on one hand, language is a part of culture and it possesses all the features of culture. on the other hand, language is the carrier of culture. it can reflect and spread other parts of culture. this special feature of language distinguishes it from other facets of culture and makes it crucially important for the transfer of culture. it is language that makes culture endure and exist. translation is the transformation from one language of something written or spoken into another. since language is the carrier of culture, translation concerns not only the transfer between languages, but also the transfer between cultures. christiane nord proposes that “ translation means comparing cultures” (nord, 2001:31). so, to some extent, translation is culture- oriented rather than language- oriented. 华北电力大学硕士学位论文 10 in the globalization era, translation is an important vehicle of international and intercultural transmission and communication. with the development of “ cultural turn” in translation studies, more and more attention is paid to the cultural elements in translation process. therefore, literary works which contain various cultural elements should be treated with enough cares, especially the culture- loaded words and expressions because some cultural information that is obvious to source language readers may