论文总字数：37204字

摘 要

1. 1 Introduction 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Research Purposes 1

1.3 Organization of the Thesis 2

2. Literature Review 3

2.1 Origin and development of the Skopos Theory 3

2.2 Basic rules of the Skopos theory 3

3. Research Methodology 6

3.1 Data 6

3.2 Methodology 6

4. Comparative Analysis of Recipe Translation in the Hong Lou Meng 7

4.1 The Translation of Delicious Dishes 7

4.2. Translation of Cakes and Snacks 8

4.3 Translation of Tea 10

4.4 Translation of Porridge 12

5. Conclusion 15

5.1 Major Findings 15

5.2 Limitations of the present study and suggestions for future research 16

References 17

Appendix Recipe in the Honglou Meng and their English Translations 18

Acknowledgments

The successful completion of this thesis would be impossible without the help and support of many people, to whom I would like to express my heart-felt thanks.

First and foremost, I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Xiang Mingjian, for his effective supervision and patient guidance. Without his timely help and constant encouragement, this thesis would not have been finished on time.

Secondly, I want to thank all my teachers at the School of Foreign Languages and Literature of Nanjing Tech University. They furnished me with sufficient knowledge to carry out my own research through their intriguing and inspiring lectures.

Finally, I want to thank my parents for their unconditional love and constant support, without which I would not have walked so far both in my life and in my study.

Abstract

China a history of more than 5,000 years, during which time it has developed a unique dietetic culture that distinguishes itself from the rest of the world. Considered as the jewel on the crown of Chinese culture, the dietetic culture is not only practiced in everyday life but also preserved in classic literary works, among which the Hong Lou Meng is the most famous. In the Hong Lou Meng, there are many detailed descriptions of China’s dietectic culture, which fully demonstrates China’s long history of food culture. This thesis presents a comparative analysis of the translation of recipes and diet-related knowledge in Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang’s (1978) as well as David Hawkes’s (1973, 1978, 1980) renditions of the Hong Lou Meng from the perspective of Skopos theory. In the framework of the Skopos Theory, it clearly points out that translators can flexibly uses different translation strategies according to their purpose of translation. Hawkes’s translation is reader-oriented and attempts to convey the pleasure of the original to Western readers. Therefore, he adopted more domestication strategies. However, from the perspective of skopos theory, it achieves the author’s original purpose of translation. Yang’s translation is centered on the author and is dedicated to promoting the excellent Chinese culture. His aim was to preserve elements of traditional Chinese culture to the maximum extent possible.

Key words: Skopos theory; recipe translation; translation strategy; comparison; the Hong Lou Meng

中文摘要

中国有五千多年的悠久历史，形成了一种独特的饮食文化。饮食文化被认为是中华文化的瑰宝，不仅在日常生活中得到实践，而且在经典的文学作品中得以保存，其中以红楼梦最为著名。在《红楼梦》中，有许多关于中国饮食文化的详细描述，充分说明了中国饮食文化的悠久历史。本文从目的论的角度对杨宪益、戴乃迭（1978）以及大卫·霍克斯（1973，1978，1980）两种英译本中的食谱和饮食相关知识的翻译进行了比较分析。研究发现，译者可以根据翻译的目的灵活运用不同的翻译策略。霍克斯以读者为中心的翻译尝试将原著的乐趣传达给西方读者。因此，他采取了更多的归化策略。从目的论的角度来看，它达到了作者翻译的初衷。杨的翻译以作者为中心，致力于弘扬优秀的中国文化。他的目标是最大程度地保留中国传统文化的元素。

关键词:目的论、食谱翻译、翻译策略、比较、《红楼梦》

Introduction

Research background

The globalization of economy and China’s reform and opening up policy spread China’s culture to foreign countries. In cross-culture communication, translation plays a very important role. Indeed, translation can be considered as a communication tool between two language societies with unique language and culture. However, translation is never a simple task as it is assumed to be and sometimes it is almost a mission impossible. There are many reasons for this, for instance, differences of language and culture as well as the translator’s purpose of undertaking the translation task.

Culture differences have a profound influence on the outcome of translation. This is particularly true when it comes to those culture-loaded linguistic items, among which recipe is a good case in point. As humans, we all need to eat. This may be the only thing that we share because there are too many differences between us when it comes to eating. We may eat different kinds of food and have different recipe because we live in different places. We may talk differently when it comes to recipes. This proves to be a non-trivial challenge when it comes to translating recipes.

1.2 Research Purposes

China has a history of more than 5,000 years, during which time it has developed a unique dietetic culture that distinguishes itself from the rest of the world. Considered as the jewel on the crown of Chinese culture, the dietetic culture is not only practiced in everyday life but also preserved in classic literary works, among which the Hong Lou Meng is the most famous. Conceived and written initially by Cao Xueqin (c. 1715- c.1763) and subsequently supplemented by Gao E (1758- c. 1815) in the mid 1700s, this novel describes in detail the life of a big feudal aristocratic family, namely the Jia family, which also includes a detailed portrayal of splendid dietetic activities of in the family. Up until now, there are several English renditions of the Hong Lou Meng, among which David Hawkes’ (1973, 1978, 1980) as well as Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang’s (1978) renditions are better known. Based on these two English translations, this thesis intends to present a comparative analysis of the translation of recipes and diet-related knowledge from the perspective of Skopos theory.

1.3 Organization of the Thesis

This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One introduces the research background and the research purpose. Chapter Two reviews previous studies of Skopos theory in terms of its origin and development and its basic rules. Chapter Three presents the data and methodology. Chapter Four applies the basic rules of Skopos theory to compare the translation of recipe in the Hong Lou Meng in terms of delicious dishes, cakes and snacks, tea and porridge from the perspective of Skopos theory. The last chapter is the concluding section, which summarizes the major findings, pinpoints the possible limitations and offers some suggestions for future study.

Literature Review

In this chapter I will first present the origin and development of the Skopos theory and then the basic rules of the theory before discussing its application in translation studies.

2.1 Origin and development of the Skopos Theory

German functional translation theory originated in the 1970s. In 1971, Katharina Reiss pointed out that “the main function of the original determines the method of translation” and proposed that the text function should be regarded as one of the criteria of translation criticism. Hans Vermeer (1978) first proposed the Skopos Theory of translation. In his view, translation is ultimately determined by the purpose of translation, and each text is produced for the purpose and should serve that purpose. Different from previous theories in translation, which are more often than not source-text oriented, the Skopos theory offers a new perspective to evaluate the outcome of the action of translation. In view of this, it seems appropriate to claims that the Skopos theory complements the limitations of previous translation theories.

2.2 Basic rules of the Skopos theory

In this section, I focus on the basic underlying ‘rules’ of the theory. Consider:

(1) A translational action is determined by its skopos.

(2) It is an offer of information in a target culture and target language (TL) concerning an offer of information in a source culture and source language (SL).

(3) A target text (TT) does not initiate an offer of information in a clearly reversible way.

(4) A TT must be internally coherent.

(5) A TT must be coherent with the source text (ST).

(6) The five rules above stand in hierarchical order, with the skopos rule predominating. (Munday 2014: 127)

Among these six rules, the first rule is the most important. In other words, the outcome of translation or the target text is entirely based on the translator’s purpose of translation or the skopos. When it comes to the second rule, its importance lies in the link that it establishes between the source/target text and their linguistic and cultural contexts. This further confirms the crucial role that translators assume in cross-cultural communication. The third rule suggests that the functions of a target text and its corresponding source text may not necessarily be the same or even similar. The fourth and fifth rules are concerned with the appraisal of the translation, which involve two sub-rules, namely the coherence rule and the fidelity rule. More specifically, the coherence rule requires the target text should be fully interpretable given its receiver’s situation, knowledge and needs. If the target text cannot meet the above-mentioned needs, then it cannot be said to be sufficient for its skopos. Under the fidelity rule, the coherence between the target text and the source text must be meet the following three standards:

(i) the ST information received by the translator;

(ii) the interpretation the translator makes of this information;

(iii) the information that is encoded for the TT receivers.

Critically, the six rules discussed in this section are on a par with each other. Instead, they are in a hierarchical order, with the skopos rule being in a dominant position.

3. Research Methodology

3.1 Data

The Hong Lou Meng presents a rich and colorful description of the daily diet of the Jia family. Indeed, the plot of the whole novel begins with a series of “eating”. On the one hand, it provides us with a wealth of information about the life of the time, during which the novel is set. On the other hand, through the luxurious side of Jia’s food, we can also see that the food corruption of wealthy families is hidden in every aspect of daily life. Through the description of diet, Cao Xueqin comprehensively and accurately shows the appearance of the feudal family to the later generations. In the Hong Lou Meng, there are 7 kinds of porridge, 6 kinds of cakes, 10 kinds of tea and 109 kinds of dishes.

3.2 Methodology

Combining the quantitative and qualitative methods, I first manually identified all the recipes in the Hong Lou Meng and calculated their frequency of occurrence in both the original text and its two English versions (Hawkes 1973, 1978, 1980; Yang amp; Yang 1978). I then apply the basic rules in the Skopos theory to make a comparative analysis of the recipe translation in the two English versions by focusing on the translation strategies that have been adopted by the translators. Finally, I give an overall evaluation of the recipe translation. Due to limited space, I only present several prototypical instances of recipe translation from the two English versions in the next chapter.

4. Comparative Analysis of Recipe Translation in the Hong Lou Meng

Translating Chinese food culture is difficult since it is well developed and imbued with rich meaning. Meanwhile, it is important to translate as it will assist readers in the West to better understand the food culture of China, which has a long history. Translation of Chinese food related content can help Westerners to understand China’s long-standing food culture. In the process of translation, the translator's choice of translation strategies will greatly affect the translation results of diet culture. In the following sections, I will select prototypical instances of recipes in the Hong Lou Meng and examine their translation by David Hawkes (1973, 1978, 1980) as well as Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang (1978). The analysis will proceed from the translation of recipe in terms of their frequency of occurrence from high to low, namely, from dishes to cakes and pastry snacks to tea and to porridge.

4.1 The Translation of Delicious Dishes

In this section, I will first analyze the translation of delicious dishes, which takes up the largest proportion.

As can be seen from the above translation, the difference between the two English versions is very obvious. While the Chinese often drink soup, the Westerners rarely eat it. To keep this important cultural element in the source language, Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang translated it as “cabbage soup with ham and dried shrimps”. This translation is coherent with the source text in terms of the use of both vocabulary and culture. However, this seems to be confusing for English readers, who possess little knowledge of Chinese food culture. Hawkes caters to the interest of its prospective readers, and try his best to remove possible obstacles and confusion due to the unique characteristics of Chinese culture. He translated it into “ham and cabbage broth”, and achieved the internal coherence of the translation.

4.2. Translation of Cakes and Snacks

In this section I discuss the translation of cakes and snacks in the Hong Lou Meng.

Cao Xueqin in his masterpiece a dream of Red Mansions gives a detailed and unique description of the catering life of the noble families in Jia's mansion, among which the description of cakes and snacks is more detailed than that of other classical novels. The method of this rice is to make thick porridge with lotus root powder, and then add osmanthus and lotus root powder to mix and cook for a while, and sprinkle sugar when eating. But the two versions are far from each other: Yang translated lotus root powder with sugar, Hawkes simply translated lotus root powder. Yang Xianyi emphasizes the faithfulness of the translation to the original text, so he uses the word by word method to translate it into “cakes made of ground lotus-foot flavored with fragrant Osmanthus”, so as to achieve the purpose of faithfulness to the original text and spreading Chinese culture. It can be said that Yang Xianyi’s translation of this porridge name is sufficient. Hawkes’s translation of the porridge as “marzipan cakes made of ground lotus-root and sugared cassia -flowers”, however, failed to effectively convey the language information of the original and the implied diet culture. But on the other hand, according to Western eating habits, breakfast is mainly bread and porridge, so its translation is to meet the expectations of the target language readers and achieve the readability of the translation.

4.3 Translation of Tea

In this section, I present two instances of tea translation.

For example, in Chapter 5 of the Hong Lou Meng, the name of tea “千红一窟” is translated as “Thousand Red Flowers in One Cavern” by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang. (1978: 99) and “Larchymae Rerum” (1980: 138). In practice, translation should be combined with the text. In the Chinese original, the author uses “千红一窟” to suggest that the fate of all women in Jia’s mansion is so common that “Qianhong” is the moral of women. In Chinese culture, it is common to compare women to flowers. The Chinese character “窟” is similar to “哭” in pronunciation. Hence, the name of the tea actually has a symbolic meaning “women’s tears”. Literal translation is adopted by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang. Consequently, the rendering is close to the literal meaning of the original text but he fails to recognize the connotation of the name of the tea. This cannot help the readers to grasp the implied meaning embedded in the cultural background, which can arouse sympathy in the readers. Meanwhile, Hawkes translation resorts to free translation, translating the name of the tea into “Maiden’s Tears”. Thus translated, the aesthetic feeling or cultural connotation in the Chinese original is lost.

Now, consider another example:

This extract comes from Chapter 8 in the Hong Lou Meng. In China, almost everyone drinks strong tea. The “枫露茶” is the tea the Jia family often drinks after dinner. While Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang uses literal translation, David Hawkes adopts transliteration. Both translation strategy cannot capture the charm and the aesthetic feeling described in the original text. In other words, it is difficult for readers to feel the exact meaning expressed by the original author. Additionally, this tea, as explained in the immediate text, is a kind of rare tea resulting from very complicated production process, in which the tea needs to be soaked in dew and steamed in steamer. While making the tea, the dew of maple leaf needs to be put into the tea, so that the final product has the smell of maple leaf, full of fresh dew. In translation, Yang Xianyi uses “maple-dew tea” (1978: 170) commonly known as Fenglu tea, while Hawkes uses abbreviations to express “Fung Loo” (1980: 198). They all express the beautiful relationship between tea and maple. Yang’s translation connects the potential readers’ feelings of tea with Fengloo and demonstrates the beauty of tea. Express the cultural connotation of tea name. But Hawkes’ translation is very simple, which makes it difficult for readers to understand the connotation of tea and wind dew.

4.4 Translation of Porridge

In this section, I analyze two instances of the translation of porridge.

This excerpt comes from Chapter 8 of the Hong Lou Meng. Living in the pear fragrance yard of Jia’s house for the time being, Baoyu is always happy. It happened that cousin Xue Baochai was in poor health recently, so she went to visit her. Aunt left rice, wine and vegetables, Baoyu had half a bowl of Bijing porridge. Bijing porridge is a kind of porridge made of Yutian Bijing rice, which was a tribute in the Qing Dynasty. According to Xie Yong’s “miscellaneous taste of food”, it is said: “Jingmi, which is planted near Beijing, is called Jingmi. Yutian county is a good producer, with long and thin grains and green tinges. It is fragrant when cooking. Its short and big, color white not green, not real Yutian also “Compendium of Materia Medica” said: “japonica rice, urinate, stop thirsty, nourish the spleen and stomach”. From the perspective of Skopos theory, when Yang translated, he takes into account that the English readers did not know what "Bijing porridge" was, so he translated it into “green rice porridge” (1978: 167), that is to say, “green rice porridge”. The results are quite different from the original meaning of “Bijing porridge”, let alone let the English target language readers understand the therapeutic effect of Bijing porridge. The correct translation should be “green-rice gruel” (1980: 195)

Now, consider another instance of porridge translation:

The above discourse fragment is selected from the 45th chapter of the Hong Lou Meng mentions bird’s nest (1978: 911). The original text says that Dai Yu must cough after the spring equinox and autumn equinox every year. This autumn’s cough is heavier than usual. Baochai came to visit her. She was advised to “get up early every day to get a first-class bird's nest or two, five dollars of rock sugar, and boil porridge with the son of silver. If you are used to it, it is better than medicine, and it is the most nourishing for Yin and Qi”. Bird’s nest is a valuable tonic, which can nourish yin, moisten dryness and replenish qi. “Materia Medica from the New” contains “nourishing lung yin, resolving phlegm and relieving cough, tonifying and clearing, which is the holy medicine for regulating deficiency and damaging fatigue”. From the perspective of Skopos theory, in order to express the meaning of “bird’s nest (911)” directly, Yang’s translation adopts a domestication method, meaning “bird’s nest syrup” (1980 II: 397). In fact, Western readers may not understand the unique diet culture and nutritional value of “bird’s nest porridge”. In their opinion, eating bird's nest is incomprehensible and unacceptable, while Westerners do not eat bird's nest, Let alone agree with the nutritional value of bird’s nest porridge. Therefore, from the perspective of teleology, Yang Xiangyi’s explanation should be more effective.

5. Conclusion

In this section, I first give the major findings of the present research before proceeding to discussing its possible limitations and proposing some suggestions for future research.

5.1 Major Findings

Food is itself an art, but this art is not isolated. It is closely connected with other arts and merged into a three-dimensional, comprehensive art. The cooking art of the delicious dishes in the Hong Lou Meng is a brilliant polyprism, reflecting the author's extraordinary cultivation and talent. In accordance with the Skopos theory, it is the purpose of the translator that determines the strategy of translation rather than the function of the source text. As far as the translation of the dietetic culture content of the Hong Lou Meng is concerned, if the translator aims for the readability and acceptability of the target text, he can adopt the translation strategy of transliteration. If it is inclined to the sufficiency of the source language, the translator can adopt the translation strategy of Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang. In fact, in the actual translation process, the translator cannot always follow one principle or adopt one method. The reason is that different translation purposes determine different translation strategies. Despite the apparent difference of these two versions in terms of style, each of them has its own distinctive merits. When it comes to the translation of recipe, the translators frequently resort to different translation strategies in view of their purpose of translation. While Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang aims to spread Chinese culture, David Hawkes strives to keep the artistic features of the original text and make his translation readable by presenting English readers with content with unique Chinese features.

5.2 Limitations of the present study and suggestions for future research

Translation is a time-consuming and meticulous work. Consequently, the analysis and appraisal of translated works need to take many factors into consideration in addition to the skopos. Additionally, due to my limited ability, I still cannot fully understand the essence of Skopos theory, and my analysis is still very superficial. Last but not least, despite the abundance of the occurrence of recipe in the Hong Lou Meng, the corpus that has been analysis is still very small, which may make the conclusion less convincing. In future research, more recipe in classical literary works need to collected so that some universal conclusions can be reached. In a word, the application of the Skopos theory in translation studies is now still very popular. However, if we want to advance translation studies in the Chinese context, more innovative methods need to adopted, as have been practiced in cognitive translation studies.

References

Cao Xueqin, Gao E. (1978). A Dream of Red Mansions. Yang Xianyi amp; Gladys Yang (Trans.). Beijing: Foreign Language Press.

Cao Xueqin, Gao E. (1973, 1978, 1980). The Story of the Stone. David Hawkes (Trans.). London: Penguin Books.

Munday, J. (2014). Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications (4th Edition). New York: Routledge.

Reiss, K. (1971). Towards a General Theory of Translational Action: Skopos Theory Explained. London: Routledge.

Vermeer, H. J. (1978). Skopos Theory of translation. Shanghai: Shanghai World Book Publishing Company.

曹雪芹、高鹗 （2005），红楼梦。北京：人民文学出版社。

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周华北（2010），跨文化交际视域里的《红楼梦》中的食谱翻译研究，硕士学位论文。广西：广西师范大学。

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谢萌（2008），《红楼梦》中的饮食文化翻译，硕士学位论文。山东：鲁东大学.

韩敏、李磊荣（2012），《文化可译性视角下的lt;红楼梦gt;翻译》，《华西语文学刊》，(2)：208-212.

Appendix

Recipe in the Honglou Meng and their English Translations^[1]

1. ‘N/A’ in the appendix suggests that the translators either intentionally omitted the translation of certain recipes or failed to translate certain recipes. No reason is given for such omissions or failures. ↑

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