Translation Style and Ideology: a Corpus-assisted Analysis of two English Translations of Hongloumeng

Lit. Linguistic Comput. Pub Date : 2011-06-01 DOI:10.1093/llc/fqr001

Defeng Li, Chunling Zhang, Kanglong Liu

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引用次数: 34

Abstract

Hongloumeng by Xueqin Cao (Hsueh-ch‘in Ts’ao) is generally considered one of the greatest classical Chinese novel. Of all nine published English translations known today, the one translated by Hawkes and Minford (the Story of the Stone, Penguin, 1973–86) and the other by Yang and Yang (A Dream of Red Mansions, Foreign Languages Press in Beijing, 1978–80) are the best known among translators and literary scholars. Over the years, both have been carefully scrutinized and much critiqued. Translators and translation scholars have been engaged in heated debates over salient features of the translations, strategies employed by the translators, the possible effects of the two translations and so on [cf. Liu and Gu (1997) On translation of cultural contents in Hong Lou Meng [in Chinese]. Chinese Translators Journal, 1: 16–19; Wang (2001) A Comparative Study of the English Translations of Poetry in Hong Lou Meng. Xi’an: Shanxi Normal University Press; Feng (2006) On the Translation of Hong Lou Meng [in Chinese]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press; Liu (2008), Translating tenor: With reference to the English versions of Hong Lou Meng. Meta, 53(3): 528–48], with the eventual aim to determine which translation better captures the style of the original text or author. Like many debates of similar nature, no definitive conclusions have been reached despite such an intense interest. We believe a corpus-assisted examination [Baker, M. (2000). Towards a methodology for investigating the style of a literary translator. Target, 12(2): 241–66; Baker, M. (1993). Corpus linguistics and translation studies: Implications and applications. In Gill, F., Baker, M., and Tognini-Bonelli, E. (eds), Text and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 233–50] of the two translations will provide more convincing analysis and can better describe the differences in the translation style of the two famous translations. A particular effort is further made to interpret the reasons for the different strategies adopted by the two different pairs of translators in the social, political, and ideological context of the translations. ................................................................................................................................................................................. Correspondence:

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翻译风格与意识形态:《红楼梦》英译的语料库辅助分析

曹雪芹的《红楼梦》被普遍认为是中国最伟大的古典小说之一。在目前已知的九本已出版的英译本中，霍克斯和明福德的《石头的故事》(企鹅出版社，1973-86)和杨氏和杨氏的《红楼梦》(北京外文出版社，1978-80)在翻译和文学学者中最为知名。多年来，两者都受到了仔细的审视和许多批评。翻译家和翻译学者一直就译文的突出特点、译者所采用的翻译策略、两种译本可能产生的影响等问题展开了激烈的争论[参见Liu and Gu (1997) on the cultural contents on translation in Chinese]。中文翻译杂志，1 (1):16-19;王(2001)《红楼梦》诗歌英译比较研究。西安:山西师范大学出版社;冯(2006)《红楼梦》译论。上海:上海外语教育出版社;刘(2008)，男高音翻译:参考《红楼梦》英文版。Meta, 53(3): 528-48]，最终目的是确定哪种翻译更能捕捉原文或作者的风格。就像许多类似性质的辩论一样，尽管有如此强烈的兴趣，但没有得出明确的结论。我们相信一个语料库辅助检查[Baker, M.(2000)]。文学翻译风格研究的方法论探讨。目标，12(2):241-66;贝克，M.(1993)。语料库语言学与翻译研究:启示与应用。在吉尔，F.，贝克，M.和托格尼-博内利，E.(编)，文本和技术:在约翰·辛克莱的荣誉。阿姆斯特丹:Benjamins, pp. 233-50]对这两个译本的分析将提供更有说服力的分析，并能更好地描述这两个著名译本的翻译风格差异。特定的努力进一步解释的原因不同的策略采用的两种不同的译者对社会、政治和意识形态背景下的翻译 . .................................................................................................................................................................................通信:

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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Lit. Linguistic Comput.

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