摘 要

《红楼梦》是中国古典小说中的鸿篇巨著，其作者曹雪芹在《红楼梦》中寄托了自己对封建社会的认识及对世态炎凉的感慨。直至今日，《红楼梦》及《红楼梦》中的诗词依然具有极高的艺术价值。《秋窗风雨夕》作为《红楼梦》中最具艺术性和代表性的诗词之一，其文本曾被众多翻译工作者英译。英译本中，以杨宪益译本和大卫·霍克斯译本艺术成就为最高。杨宪益为我国著名翻译工作者，大卫·霍克斯为久负盛名的英国汉学家。两人的身份截然不同，致使两人的翻译目的、译本风格截然不同。本文以德国翻译学家汉斯·费米尔的翻译目的论作指导，通过考察《红楼梦》两个译本序言及两人传记，得出杨宪益和大卫·霍克斯各自的翻译目的及在取舍翻译方法时的抉择，并以此客观公允地评价《秋窗风雨夕》两个译本各自的优劣之处及其在特定文化背景下存在的合理性，进而得出基于目的论的中国古典小说中诗词英译的一般方法。

关键词:目的论；《秋窗风雨夕》；翻译目的；翻译方法

Abstract

Hong Lou Meng is one of the most important works in Chinese classical novels, and the author, Cao Xueqin, gave his own understanding of the feudal society and his exclamation of the fickleness of the world in the novel. Up to now, the novel and the poems in the novel are still of high artistic value. Qiu Chuang Feng Yu Xi, as one of the most artistic and representative poems in the novel, has been translated into English by many translators. Among the translations, Yang Xianyi’s translation and David Hawkes’ translation have the highest artistic achievements. Yang Xianyi is a famous Chinese translator and David Hawkes is a world-renowned sinologist in Britain. Because of their distinct identities, their translation purposes and translation styles are totally different. Guided by German translator Hans Vermeer’s Skopos Theory, this paper investigates the prologues of the translations of Hong Lou Meng and the translator’s biographies. The findings indicate the respective translation purposes of Yang Xianyi and David Hawkes and their trade-off choices of translation methods. By means of objectively evaluation of the merits and demerits of the two translation versions of Qiu Chuang Feng Yu Xi, the rationality of existence of the translations in a specific cultural background is explained. It is proved that Skopos Theory is one of the general methods for the English translation of poems in Chinese classical novels.

Key words: Skopos Theory; Qiu Chuang Feng Yu Xi; translation purpose; translation method

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 The Author and His Poetry 1

1.2 The Translators: Yang Xianyi and David Hawkes 2

1.3 Significance of the Study 3

2 Highlights of Skopos Theory 5

2.1 Skopos Rule 5

2.2 Coherence Rule 6

2.3 Fidelity Rule 6

3 Comparative Analysis of Two Translation Versions Based on Skopos Theory 7

3.1 In Wording 7

3.2 In Sentence Pattern 10

3.3 In Prosody 12

4 Findings and Suggestions Proposed 14

5 Conclusion 15

References 16

Acknowledgements 18

A Comparative Study of the Two Translation Versions of Qiu Chuang Feng Yu Xi from the Perspective of Skopos Theory

1 Introduction

1.1 The Author and His Peotry

Cao Xueqin, a great novelist of Qing Dynasty, was born in Jiangning, Jiangsu Province (now Nanjing, Jiangsu Province), and his ancestral home is Liaoyang, Shengjing Area (now Liaoyang, Liaoning Province). Cao Xueqin experienced a rich and romantic life in Jiangning in his early years. In the 6th year of the reign of Emperor Yongzheng (1728), Cao Xueqin moved to Beijing with his family after his family was confiscated for its crimes. During this period, Cao Xueqin completed the world-famous Chinese classical novel “Hong Lou Meng”. Cao Xueqin died in Beijing in the 28th year of the reign of Emperor Qianlong (1763). Cao Xueqin’s master work, Hong Lou Meng, is widely recognized as the peak of Chinese classical novels because of its large scale, rigorous structure, complicated plot, and vivid description.

The poetry “Dai Bie Li, Qiu Chuang Feng Yu Xi” (hereinafter referred to as Qiu Chuang Feng Yu Xi) was written by Cao Xueqin, in the 45th chapter of the Chinese classical novel “Hong Lou Meng”. In the novel, the poetry was written by Lin Daiyu in the style of Chun Jiang Hua Yue Ye, the poetry of Zhang Ruoxu. Surrounded by the word “qiu (autumn)”, the whole poetry shows the melancholy and sorrow of the helpless girl, Lin Daiyu. This poetry, linking scenery with emotion, is highly praised by many literary researchers. Zhou Ruchang, a famous scholar of Hong Lou Meng, believed that Qiu Chuang Feng Yu Xi had made the highest artistic achievements in three poems of Lin Dai Yu: Zang Hua Yin, Qiu Chuang Feng Yu Xi, and Tao Hua Xing. Among them, the last two poems were romantic and unrestrained, beautiful and sad, and far above the first one (Zhou, 2004:208). It can be seen that Qiu Chuang Feng Yu Xi can be regarded as one of the most artistic and representative poems in Hong Lou Meng.

Due to the high artistic value of the poetry, many translators translated the poetry into English. Among them, the translations of Yang Xianyi and David Hawkes are the most famous.

1.2 The Translators: Yang Xianyi and David Hawkes

Yang Xianyi, a famous Chinese translator, foreign literature researcher and poet, was born in Tianjin in 1915. He used to study ancient Greek and Roman literature, medieval French literature and English literature at Merton College, University of Oxford. In the early 1960s, Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Yang (a British scholar of Chinese culture), began to translate Hong Lou Meng into English, which was completed in 1974. Their translation, called A Dream of Red Mansions, had a huge impact. On November 23, 2009, Yang Xianyi died in Beijing at the age of 95. During his life, Yang Xianyi cooperated with his wife, Gladys Yang, to translate Hong Lou Meng, Ru Lin Wai Shi, and many other Chinese classical novels into English, which had a wild influence at home and abroad. Yang Xianyi’s English translation of Hong Lou Meng is the only complete English translation of Hong Lou Meng by Chinese.

As a translation expert of Beijing Foreign Languages Press, Yang Xianyi actively responded to the Chinese government’s plan of “translating the classics into English”. Yang Xianyi regarded translation from Chinese to English as his main profession, and regarded faithfulness as the first essence of translation. Yang Xianyi believed that the translator should try to be faithful to the original, neither exaggeration, nor anything else. Yang Xianyi once criticized Arthur Waley’s translation of The Book of Songs for portraying the peasants of China’s Zhou Dynasty as the medieval peasants of Europe, so that the translation reads more like an English medieval folk song than a poem about China (Ren, 1993:34). Yang Yi, Yang Xianyi’s sister, once pointed out that Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang had translated many classics, not because of their interests, but because they thought it was necessary to introduce China’s cultural heritage to the outside world, and they thought foreigners should know how rich China’s cultural heritage is (Yang, 1986:41). Therefore, it can be found that, in the process of translating Hong Lou Meng into English, Yang Xianyi always aimed at exporting national cultural characteristics and establishing national image.

David Hawkes, a world-renowned sinologist, was born in east London in 1923. He studied Chinese at University of Oxford and Peking University before becoming a professor of Chinese at University of Oxford. In 1970, David Hawkes resigned his job at University of Oxford and devoted himself to the English translation of Hong Lou Meng. David Hawkes spent 10 years translating the first 80 chapters of Hong Lou Meng, while his son-in-law, John Minford, a sinologist, translated the last 40 chapters. The translation, called The Story of the Stone, had a huge impact. David Hawkes died on July 31, 2009, aged 86. David Hawkes’ English translation of Hong Lou Meng and Yang Xianyi’s English translation of Hong Lou Meng are the only two complete English translations of Hong Lou Meng.