Translation style and ideology: A corpus-assisted analysis of two English translations of Hongloumeng

Abstract

The writers seek to interpret the reasons for the different strategies adopted by the two most significant pairs of translators of Xueqin Cao’s great classical Chinese novel Hongloumeng in the social, political, and ideological context of the translations. Of all nine published English translations of the novel known at present, the one translated by Hawkes and Minford (the Story of the Stone; 1973–86) and the other by Yang and Yang (A Dream of Red Mansions; 197880) are the most popular among translators and literary scholars. Translators and translations scholars have debated over salient features of the translations, strategies employed by the translators, and possible effects of the two translations, and so on in order to determine which translation better captures the style of the original text of author. However, no definitive conclusions have been reached in spite of such an intense interest. A corpus-assisted examination of the two translations will offer more compelling analysis and can better describe the differenced in the translation style of the two well-known translations.