浅析《红楼梦》中的人名翻译技巧

在名著《红楼梦》中有名有姓的人物共计三百余人。曹雪芹的命名技巧可谓独树一帜,书中人物名称或是巧妙地借用了谐音,或是引经据典,自有出处。人物名称可以暗示人物的性格、身份、背景乃至在书中的命运。然而在翻译过程中由于文化背景的差异,译者往往很难准确地译出人物名称背后的隐含意义。目前流传的两份全译版本分别是杨宪益、戴乃迭夫妇的A Dream of Red Mansions及霍克斯译的The Story of the Stone。以杨戴译本为基础,讨论杨戴夫妇在翻译过程中运用到的翻译技巧与策略。

An analysis of the translation strategies of characters names in the A Dream of Red Mansions

one of the most well-known literature masterpieces, A Dream of Red Mansions has a total amount of almost 300-400 characters. Ciao Cie-chin＇s naming methods showed his originality and skills. The characters are very artfully named in a way of homophones or named after some words and phrases quoted from ancient poetries. We could then deduce the background and status of a character. Even his/ her destiny can be indicated from the name. So, we can see the importance lies in here, as well as the significance in translating these names. However, according to the cultural gap, the translation of literature works can not avoid the loss of information to some extent. And the degree of the translator＇s comprehension of the original text could also effect the translation. Not to mention the huge amount and the complexity of the characters in A Dream of Red Mansions. The complicated interpersonal relationship could confuse a Chinese reader, let alone the foreign readers whose knowledge about Chinese traditional culture is very limited. The only two popular translated versions of whole text are A Dream of Red Mansions by Yang Xianyi＆Dai Naidie and The Story of the Stone by David Hawkes. The problem we are going to fix here is to discuss the translation skills and strategies that are used during the process of translation based on Yang＇s A Dream of Red Mansions.