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1. Introduction
Hong Lou Meng is a masterpiece of Chinese vernacular literature and one of China's Four Great Classical Novels. Regarded as “the encyclopedia of Chinese culture”, Hong Lou Meng touches upon almost all aspects of Chinese culture in that era, such as clothing, diet, Buddhism, architectural style, etc.. Either the study on the book itself or the study on its translation is indisputably meaningful and deserves much attention and efforts. This paper just focuses on the translation of food names out of such a content-rich classic.
1.1 Introduction to Hong Lou Meng and Its Translations
Hong Lou Meng is a monumental work, the peak of ancient Chinese fiction. It is written by Cao Xueqin (1715-1763), one of the most famous novelists and poets in the Qing Dynasty (1636 A.D.-1912 A.D.). The book describes the rise and prosperity as well as the decline and downfall of the feudal lord familial system represented by the Jia Family, centering on the tragic love story between Baoyu and Daiyu. It brings to light the darkness and corruption that permeate the last stage of feudal society and indicates the unavoidable historical doom of it. In the meantime, a full picture of the flourishing age of late feudal society unfolds, showing almost all aspects of life typical of 18th-century Chinese aristocracy, such as clothing, diet, architectural style and so on.
However, it is precisely because of its rich cultural contents that the translation of the novel becomes an extremely arduous job. With great perseverance and resolution, some ambitious translators home and abroad have challenged this formidable task and have made gratifying achievements. As far as English version is concerned, the first attempt at translating the novel into English was made by the noted Protestant missionary and sinologist Robert Morrison (1782-1834) in 1812. From then on, different renditions were published successively. Among all the nine English versions, there are two complete ones: A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, and The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes and John Minford.
Since the appearance of the two complete versions, researches on them have never stopped. Some scholars stay focused on one version while the others have interest in comparing the two versions from every aspect. Anyhow, the superiority of one version over another remains an unanswerable question as different people hold different criteria and perspectives in judging the same translation work. It is sensible to admit that both of them have their own strengths and weaknesses.
1.2 Rationale and Significance of this Paper
This paper focuses on the translation of food names in Hong Lou Meng and aims at exploring practical suggestions in the field of diet translation. The comparison and analyses are made under the guidance of Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory.
From the perspective of functional equivalence, what can be revealed is whether translation can reflect the cultural and emotional effects of the source text or not. Under the guidance of that theory, translators devote themselves to realizing the functional equivalence of information instead of simply pursuing the direct formal equivalence. In this case, Hong Lou Meng is not only a literary work, but a vivid demonstration of the unique Chinese culture.
The translation of such a culturally rich novel should highlight the strategies on how to
convey Chinese culture to foreign readers. So this paper chooses to analyzes the translation of food names in the two versions from the perspective of functional equivalence. In this way, on the one hand, different translation strategies adopted in the two versions can be examined and compared so as to provide useful advice to other translators. On the other hand, Chinese dietary culture can be spread and carried forward.
1.3 Main Content and Originalities
Using Functional Equivalence Theory, this paper will firstly review the previous studies on the translation of food names in Hong Lou Meng and the main ideas of Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory. Next it will compare the two translation versions according to some form of classification. Then it will summarize and compare their translation methods. After all these efforts done, the paper will give practical suggestions on how to translate similar contents.