摘 要

《红楼梦》诞生于18世纪中叶，是中国古典小说艺术的集大成者，它展现了清代中国社会文化的全景。此外，《红楼梦》还是汉语使用的“宝库”。小说中运用了大量诗歌、谚语、典故、熟语等。

作为我国古典白话小说巅峰之作，《红楼梦》在19世纪初即已引起西方关注。在两百多年外译史中，《红楼梦》经历片段翻译、节译、选译、转译等诸多形式，最终在20世纪出现全译本。迄今为止，英语全译本已经超过了10种，其中尤以杨宪益、戴乃迭夫妇的译本和英国汉学家大卫·霍克斯及其女婿约翰·闵福德的译本最为著名，两译本中大量生动形象的熟语的翻译更是引起了翻译界的广泛关注，也是本文的主要研究对象。熟语形式简单，但具有丰富的意义，在人们的语言交流中起到了巨大的作用。无论是非正式场合还是正式场合，无论是文人还是手工劳动者，都离不开熟语的使用。熟语的研究是在一定的语境中研究文化内涵，这就要求研究者具备对当地文化的理解能力。另一方面，研究熟语在翻译作品中的运用，就是研究隐涵的文化意义是如何移植到另一种文化中的。

本文包含四个章节。第一章是作家、作品及译本介绍。第二章是文献综述。第三章对《红楼梦》两种译本进行对比研究，分析《红楼梦》中熟语的翻译策略。第四章是基于以上分析得出的研究结论及本研究的局限性。本文通过对两个译本中熟语翻译的比较，考察了不同译者所使用的翻译策略，反映了译者对翻译活动本质的思考，以及在不同语言中翻译文化负载词的本质。

关键词：《红楼梦》；熟语英译；对比研究；翻译策略

Abstract

A Dream of Red Mansions, one of China’s greatest classic novels throughout the history, appeared in the mid-18th century, which unfolds a panorama of Chinese society and culture in Qing dynasty. Other than its social and cultural significance, it is also a treasure house of Chinese language use. The novel is studded with Chinese poems, proverbs, allusions, idioms and the like .

As the pinnacle of Chinese ancient vernacular novel, it has already attracted the attention of the west in the early 19th century. In the history of foreign language translation for more than two hundred years, A Dream of Red Mansions has been translated into English in various forms, such as fragment translation, abridged translation, selected translation and rendering. There have been more than ten full-length English versions of this novel so far. But A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, and The Story of the Stone by David Hawkes and his son-in-law John Minford have gained high reputation. The translation of a large number of vivid idioms in the two translations has aroused widespread concern in the translation community and is also the main research object of this paper. Idioms, concise in form but rich in meaning, which plays a great role in human language communication. Idioms have a wide range of use and users, varying from formal occasions to informal ones and from men of letters to men working with their hands. To study idioms is to study the cultural implications in a certain context, which requires the researchers to be competent in understanding the local culture. On the other hand, to study idioms in translation works is to study how the implied cultural meaning is transferred into another culture.

This paper consists of four chapters. The first chapter is the introduction to the novel, the writer and the translation versions. The second chapter is dedicated to literature review of the present research. In the third chapter, a contrastive study will be conducted between two translation versions to analyze the translation strategies of idioms from A Dream of Red Mansions. The last chapter is the conclusion of the research findings based on the analysis on the above. Other than that, there will be a short narration about the limitations of the present research. By comparing the idiom translation, the paper examines translation strategies used by different translators, which mirror translators’ thoughts about the nature of translation activities and the essence of translating culture-loaded expressions in a different language.

Key Words: The Dream of Red Mansions; Idiom translation; Contrastive study; Translation strategies

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 A Dream of Red Mansions and Its Author 1

1.2 The Translation Versions of A Dream of Red Mansions 2

1.3 Idioms 3

2 Literature Review 5

2.1 Previous Studies on A Dream of Red Mansions at Home and Abroad 5

2.2 Studies on Idioms Translation in A Dream of Red Mansions 6

3 A Contrastive Study of the Strategies in Translating idioms 7

3.1 Idioms Translation in Different Versions 7

3.2 A Discussion of Translation Strategies in Two Versions 10

3.3 Reasons for Translator’s Choice of Translation Strategies 12

4 Conclusion 14

4.1 Summary 14

4.2 Limitations and Further Study 15

References 16

Acknowledgements 17

A Contrastive Study of Translation Strategies of Idioms in A Dream of Red Mansions

1 Introduction

1.1 A Dream of Red Mansions and its author

A Dream of Red Mansions was composed by Cao Xueqin in the middle of 18th century during the Qing dynasty. Long considered a masterpiece of Chinese literature, the novel is generally acknowledged to be the pinnacle of Chinese fiction. With its profound cultural connotation, A Dream of Red Mansions is praised as a part of Chinese culture and has been deeply loved by people since it was published. The author depicts the ups and downs of four outstanding families. Among the four families, the family of Jia is the main focus of this novel and the mainstream of the novel is the love tragedy between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu. This novel is believed to be a novel of semi-autobiographical. In fact, it reflected the rise and fall of the author’s own family and further reflected the rise and fall of the Qing Dynasty. A lot of characters with vivid and forgettable images were shaped in this novel. These characters seem to be living in the real world, expressing their happiness and sorrow. The novel is remarkable for its huge cast of characters and psychological scope. Besides, it is famous for its precise and detailed observation of the life and social structures typical of 18th-century Chinese society. The author successfully portrayed the wonderful picture of the feudal social life at that time. In the novel, it involves a lot of aspects of Chinese feudal society, like politics, religion, social customs, clothing, food, medical care, architecture, etc. It makes it a novel full of charm for readers with containing the essence of Chinese culture. Besides, many scholars at home and abroad have devoted themselves to the study of the novel. It has already given rise to a new research field, namely redology.

Almost every novel about reality is closely related to the author’s own life experience. Thus, it is necessary to do a research on author’s background so as to better appreciate the book. Cao Xueqin was born in a family of large bureaucratic landlord in the Qing Dynasty. Hence, he developed a variety of hobbies, such as painting, architecture, medicine and so on, which can be reflected in his novel A Dream of Red Mansions. Cao Xueqin not only experienced wealth and prosperity, but also experienced poverty. In the early years of the reign of Yongzheng emperor in Qing Dynasty, implicated by the internal political struggle of the feudal ruling class, Cao’s family suffered a series of blows and then appeared to be on the wane. After a major turning point in the course of his life, Cao Xueqin found the indifference of society and had a clearer and deeper understanding of the feudal society. He despised the power, stayed away from the bureaucracy, and lived a life of poverty. In his twilight years, he moved to the western suburbs of Beijing and devoted himself to the writing and revision of A Dream of Red Mansions.

1.2 The Translation Versions of A Dream of Red Mansions

The translation has never stopped in the process of foreign exchange and cultural communication in order to meet the needs of people from all over the world for Chinese traditional culture. With the advent of the literary masterpiece A Dream of Red Mansions, translation versions of different languages have also published. This novel has been translated into more than 20 languages so far. As the most widely used language in the world today, English has a powerful influence and cultural dissemination ability. The emergence of the English translation versions of A Dream of Red Mansions played a vital role in promoting the development of this Chinese classic quintessence, and made great contributions to the dissemination of Chinese culture. As a result, the study of English translation versions of A Dream of Red Mansions has become the target of the majority of translators and redology scholars.

In 1812, Robert Morrison tried to translate this novel into English. In order to publish it in his book Horae Sinicae, he translated part of chapter 4 of this novel (Gray, 2011:23). It is the first English version of A Dream of Red Mansions though it is incomplete. And the first complete English translation version of the novel has been published by Penguin Books Limited Group in 1937. It is titled The Story of the Stone, which is translated by David Hawkes and his son-in-law John Minford. Then, another famous English translation version appeared, published by Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Yang in Beijing with the name of A Dream of Red Mansions. So far, there have been more than ten full-length English versions. Among them, the translation versions by Yang and Hawkes are the most representative works, and they are also the focus of this paper.