（英语语言文学专业论文）社会符号学视角下《红楼梦》杨译本中双关语的翻译.pdf

ii 摘要摘要 红楼梦是中国四大古典名著之一，其中双关语的运用充分体现了汉语的 含蓄美以及作者高超的写作技巧和语言驾驭能力。随着各国之间交往的不断加 深，有越来越多的中国古典小说被翻译成其他语言销往国外。 红楼梦的英文 译本在海外受到了普遍的欢迎。近年来，很多学者从不同的角度对红楼梦的 英文译本做了深入的研究。本文选取杨宪益夫妇对红楼梦英译本为对象，从 社会符号学翻译法的角度研究语言和文化障碍对双关语的翻译中意义和功能的 实现会造成哪些影响以及杨宪益夫妇在处理这些问题时所采取的策略。 本文分成六个部分。第一部分主要介绍了红楼梦这一中国古典名著以及 社会符号学的翻译理论。第二部分介绍了本文所运用的理论框架，即社会符号学 理论的发展过程。第三部分详细介绍了双关语的特点、分类以及双关语翻译过程 中常见的障碍。 第四部分进一步深入介绍了社会符号学理论在双关语翻译研究的 应用。第五部分以社会符号学的翻译理论为框架，详细分析了杨宪益夫妇对红 楼梦中双关语的翻译。第六部分则是对上述分析的总结。 总体而言，杨宪益夫妇非常成功地再现了红楼梦中双关语的指称含义和 语用含义及其相对应的语言功能，然而由于受到中英文间语言障碍的影响，在言 内含义的层面上往往难以和源语做到对应。 关键词：关键词：社会符号学，双关语， 红楼梦 ，含义，功能 iii abstract hong lou meng is regarded as one of the four most famous classical novels published in the chinese literature history. puns used in this novel manifest the beauty of the chinese language and also show the authors superior techniques and skills of language application. with the development of communication between china and western countries, more and more classical chinese novels have been translated into foreign languages. the english translation of hong lou meng has enjoyed great popularity in the western world. recent years has witnessed an in-depth research on the english translation of hong lou meng from various perspectives. this thesis carries out a comprehensive study on yang xianyi and gladys yangs english translation of the puns in hong lou meng from socio-semiotic perspective and analyzes how problems in pun translation are stirred by the language and culture barriers and how the yangs deal with these problems in their translation. this m.a. thesis consists of six parts. in the beginning a general introduction of hong lou meng is given and the socio-semiotic approach to translation is explained. chapter two focuses on the theoretical framework, namely the development of socio-semiotics. chapter three is a survey of pun, including its properties, classification and barriers in translation of puns. chapter four goes further to specific analysis, elaborating on the socio-semiotic approach to the translation of puns. chapter five is a detailed analysis of the yangs translation of puns in hong lou meng under the framework of the socio-semiotic approach of translation. chapter six sums up the whole process. generally speaking, the yangs are very successful in reproducing the designative, pragmatic meaning of puns and their corresponding functions, yet the linguistic meaning is not well reproduced in most cases, which is caused by the language barriers between chinese and english. key words: socio-semiotics, puns, hlm, meanings, functions 上海交通大学上海交通大学 学位论文版权使用授权书学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、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， 允许论文被查阅和借阅。 本人授权上海交通大学可以将本学位论文的 全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫 描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 保密保密，在 年解密后适用本授权书。 本学位论文属于 不保密 不保密。 （请在以上方框内打“” ） 学位论文作者签名：戴炯戴炯 指导教师签名：汪开虎汪开虎 日期： 年 月 日 日期： 年 月 日 i acknowledgements i avail myself of this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to all who have given me a lot of help and encouragement in my preparation for this thesis. first of all, my special thank goes to professor wang kaihu, who impresses me with his wide range of knowledge, sensible perspective and dedicated spirits to his students. he kindly gave me valuable comments on my topic and guided me patiently through the writing process. secondly, my translation course teacher prof. hu kaibao was of great help in giving wonderful lessons which aroused my interest in studying translation theories and strategies. i am also greatly indebted to all the other respectable and conscientious teachers who have taught me during my graduate study here in shanghai jiao tong university. last but not the least, i would like to give my sincere gratitude to my classmates, whose recommendations and ideas are of great significance to me. 1 chapter one introduction hong lou meng (hlm) is regarded as one of the four most famous classical novels published in the chinese literature history. as a novelistic monument, the novel presents a panoramic view of the social life and traditions of 18th china, and thus is called the encyclopedia of chinese feudal society and crystallization of the brilliant chinese culture. as a result, the language of the novel, being extremely polished, manifests the panoramic use of the chinese language in variation and also shows the authors superior techniques and skills of language application. thus, hong lou meng is not only an excellent literary work, but also a textbook of linguistics and rhetoric. as nowadays the cultural communication between china and western countries become more and more frequent, there are an increasing number of foreigners desiring to know more about the great literature heritage of china. to meet this demand, more and more classical chinese novels have been translated into foreign languages. since davies gilbert, a member of the royal society in britain, first translated some segments of chapter three from hlm, there have been about ten versions of the english translation of hlm. many of them only translate some extractions of the novel, among which the ones translated by wang liangzhi in 1927 and wang jizhen in 1929 played an important role in the introduction of this great novel to the western world. however, the most popular and outstanding translations of hlm are a dream of red mansions by yang xianyi and gladys yang and the story of the stone by david hawks and john minford. in recent years, english translation studies on hlm have attracted the attention of many scholars, who have conducted researches in this aspect from various perspectives. according to liu shicong, there have been about 100 articles focusing on the translation studies of the english version of hlm in recent 30 years (liu shicong, 2004:3). a lot of experts make comprehensive research of the english versions of hlm. these articles mainly fall into two categories: one from the 2 macroscopic view and studying the influence of history, politics, culture, as well as the train of thoughts in the literature field on the translation of hlm; the other from the microscopic view, which mainly concerns about the cultural and linguistic phenomenon in the translations of hlm. 1.1 aim as mentioned above, hong lou meng, a novelistic monument in chinese literature, is famous not only for its unique creation proposition, elaborate plots, but also for the masterly use of rhetorical skills by the author. those colorful figures of speech such as pun, metaphors etc. make great contribution to this great work and simultaneously to the linguistic and rhetorical research. pun is witticism. by skillfully employing the pun, the author adds some special effects to hlm. due to the phonological or lexical vacancy between a source and target language, a pun, when translated into a target language, may lose its punny sense. therefore its impossible for readers to recognize the aesthetic effect as well as the wit, humor and complicated feelings expressed uniquely by the use of puns. this paper aims to reveal, through a comprehensive study, how problems in pun translation are stirred by the phonological and lexical vacancy, as well as cultural differences between source and target languages and also how the yangs deal with these problems in their translation. in recent years, socio-semiotic approach has been introduced into translation both home and abroad. according to socio-semiotics, the world is made up of sign system. language, which represents the combination of other sign systems, is the most important, complicated and holistic sign system in the world. language as a sign system originates and develops in society, so language is in nature a social phenomenon. one can never get the true meaning of language when he isolates it from society or from other signs, with which it is closely related. therefore, translation is not just a transfer of language, but a transfer of culture. this paper intends to examine the various translating strategies applied by the 3 yangs in retaining the linguistic and pragmatic meaning of puns in the source text. meanwhile it also evaluates the pun translation in the yangs version in terms of the reproduction of the informative, aesthetic and expressive functions. 1.2 thesis structure this thesis is composed of six parts. chapter one gives a general introduction of hong lou meng as well as the socio-semiotic approach to translation. the aim and significance of this current thesis is also outlined in the first chapter. chapter two elaborates on the development of the theoretical framework of socio-semiotics. chapter three is an overall survey on english pun, focusing on its properties, classification and barriers in translation of puns. a specific analysis is followed in chapter four, which goes further to the socio-semiotic approach to the translation of puns, including the socio-semiotic nature of pun, the advantage and the criterion of socio-semiotic approach in pun translation. chapter five is a detailed analysis of the yangs translation of puns in hong lou meng under the framework of the socio-semiotic approach of translation. findings of this thesis are listed in chapter six, which sums up the whole process. 1.3 significance of this research based on semiotics, socio-semiotics provides translation study with an interesting and insightful perspective. socio-semiotic approach goes out of the range of pure linguistic ones and pays much attention to other factors such as culture and context that also convey meaning in the process of translation. this approach takes into consideration various aspects of translation and expands the base for recognizing the significance of both lexical content and rhetorical form. as mentioned above, puns employed in hong lou meng add some special effects to this masterpiece. puns are often regarded as difficult points in translation because of their cultural and linguistic characteristics. a pun sometimes contains not only the linguistic meaning but also the pragmatic meaning, which are easily lost 4 when they are translated into another language. how to retain the linguistic and pragmatic meaning of puns and how to reproduce the functions of puns in hong lou meng has thus become a common concern. analyzing the translation of this book from the socio-semiotic perspective will provide a panoramic view and hopefully will be of great significance to translation studies. 5 chapter two the development of socio-semiotics 2.1 semiotics semiotics, as an emerging subject and one of the latest methodologies, is developing very quickly and there still exists room for improvement. the moment semiotics was introduced to the academic world, it has promised a large potential for a wide-scoped development. semiotics studies all kinds of social and cultural phenomena and covers a wide scope including sociology, psychology, logic, aesthetics and literary criticism. wen hongrui holds that what semiotics has foundthe compelling power that dominates all social activities lies in the fact that it is signifying power, which is how language works. (wen hongrui, 1997: 51) mcarthur defines semiotics as“the study and analysis of signs and symbols as part of communication, as for example in language, gesture, clothing, and behavior”(mcarthur,1992:91). semiotics as a subject came into being at the beginning of the 20th century. however its history may date back to the time of plato and aristotle. the 20th century witnessed a rapid development of semiotics. two schools of thoughts, namely the american school and european school, laid the systematic foundation for the development of modern semiotics and made great contribution to the establishment of semiotics as an independent subject. 2.1.1 ferdinand de saussure and the linguistic sign the founder of the european school, ferdinand de saussure carries out a linguistic-oriented study on semiology. he points out in his book courses in general linguistics that linguistics is based on and originates from semiology (saussure， 2001：16). he holds that a sign denotes or refers to something out there in the real world, the linguistic sign does not unite a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound image (saussure，2001：66). he uses sign to represent the entity, employs signified and signifier to substitute for the concept and sound. saussure argues that the relation between the signifier and signified is arbitrary and conventional. he regards 6 arbitrariness as the founding principle of linguistics. it is also one of the most distinguished characteristics of signs. saussure suggests that the meaning of signs is determined by the relationship between signifier and signified. such a relationship is arbitrary and “there are no natural connections between them” (saussure，2001：69). therefore the same signifier may have different signifieds. such examples can be found in different cultures and even in the sub-cultures of the same culture. pun, as rhetoric means, makes use of the arbitrary feature of signs to add special effects to the literary works. the following sentences may serve as a best example: example 1 - what do lawyers do after they die? - lie still. the second sentence has two meanings. the literal meaning is that lawyers will remain in a flat position on a surface after they die. the referential meaning is that lawyers will continue to deceive after they die. saussure claims that sociality is another trait of signs. he insists that “a language never exists even for a moment except as a social fact, for it is a semiological phenomenon” (saussure, 2001: 77). sociality is one of the intrinsic features of signs. thus, one cannot fully understand the meaning of a word without connecting it to the outside world. when analyzing saussures theory of semiology, guo jianzhong emphasizes that a sign gains its value from its relation to other similar values. without such a relationship signification would not exist. (guo jianzhong，2000：106). we cannot regard the value of a sign as an autonomous entity. instead, a sign should always be considered as a part of the system. saussure points out that signifier is both connected with and distinct from the signified. both of them are parts of the system and can only be defined by their relationship with other elements in the system (saussure, 2001: 69). sociality of signs is an indispensible component of puns. it is the foundation on which the double context of puns is based. in the preceding example, one can only make out the referential meaning of the answer “lie still” when he puts it in the context and associates it with the social reality. saussure believes that “in a sign, what matters more than any idea or sound associated with it is 7 other signs surround it.” (saussure, 2001: 118) and that everything in language is based on relationships (saussure，2001：122). thus to analyze language is to analyze relationships. saussures definition of sign plays a revolutionary role in ideological history. before the period of linguistic semiotics, traditional linguists didnt identify the duality of the linguistic sign; they regarded language as the tool of naming things, ignoring the psychological, social and universal characteristics of human languages. saussures theory about semiotics enables researchers to find the nature of and barriers to translation. the concept of linguistic signs makes people realize that translation is the message transition between two systems with common characteristics. 2.1.2 c.s. peirce, charles morris and the development of semiotics at about the same time as saussure was developing semiology, the american philosopher c.s. peirce was also conducting some research of semiotics. peirce has made several definitions for sign, but the one he made in 1897 was thought to be the best: “a sign, or representamen, is something which stands for something in some respect or capacity. it addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps, a more developed sign. the sign which it creates i call the interpretant of the first sign. the sign stands for something, its object. it stands for that object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea, which i have sometimes called the ground of the representamen” (peirce, 1931：92). peirce emphasized a triadic relationship among the three components of signs, namely, the sign vehicle, the referent and the interpretant. a signs interpretation involves a cooperation of sign vehicle, its referent and its interpretant. only the interpretant can use a sign and explain a sign. 8 this picture reminds us of the “semantic triangle” proposed by c.k. ogden and l.a. richards. ogden and richards suggests that meaning derives from the interrelationship between concept, referent and symbol. there exists a direct relationship between concept and referent as well as concept and symbol. concept is a reflection and generalization of the object (or referent) in the world. concept is something abstract, which takes form in symbol (word). the word is used to express certain concept. nevertheless there is no direct relation between symbol and referent. in other words, their relationship is arbitrary and conventional. wang mingyu believes that no sign exists independently from other signs because a sign can only be interpreted and explained by another sign (wang mingyu， 1998：11). a sign and its interpretation form a sign entity. in some cases, the sign entity can be regarded as another larger sign, which may correspond with an interpretation of a higher level. for example, the noun “rose” as a sign corresponds referentsign vehicle interpretant (refers to)