Resumen de Traditional Chinese Ritual Culture Transformed?: A TBC Approach to Joly’s and Hawkes’ Behaviour in Translating the Honorifics in Hong Lou Meng

Ying Luo

• English

  This article compares the treatment of honorifics in English translations of Hong Lou Meng by Henry Bencraft Joly, a British diplomat and David Hawkes, a British sinologist, in light of Translator Behaviour Criticism (TBC). The research adopts an integral method that starts with a textual analysis of the translator’s construal choices, then examines the identification of the translator’s behaviour pattern and finally his social motivations. The analysis has led to five major findings: 1) Joly’s version intended to preserve the traditional Chinese ritual culture contained in the honorifics and attached great importance to restoring the honorific function of the original address terms. 2) Joly tended to subscribe to the “truth-seeking” principle even at the cost of readability to maintain the original honorifics’ function. Nonetheless, in effect, he did it to translate and annotate a teaching material for British diplomatic interns, which led to the alignment of his “truth-seeking” behaviour with his “utility-attaining” pursuit. 3) Hawkes’ version, upholding the “utility-attaining” principle, established an addressing system adapted to the target language readers’ cognitive habits with the social norms and family relations of the modern English world taken as background domain. He also made use of some creative translation strategies that had enhanced expressivity and influenced the characterization. 4) Hawkes’ “utility-attaining” behaviour is sustained by a “truth-seeking” basis because he aspired to reconstruct in modern English the literariness of the classic Chinese novel. 5) The different behaviours of the two translators demonstrated through construal choices in translating the honorifics in the novel conform to their respective social identities and professional habitus.

• 中文

  本文以《红楼梦》敬称英译为研究对象，在译者行为批评理论基础上对比分析英国外交官乔利和英国汉学家霍克思的翻译行为。文章探索将基于文本的译者识解机制分析与社会视域下的译者行为研究有机结合，由识解模式描绘入手，上升至译者行为分析，再到译者行为社会动因阐释，形成了层层深入的研究结构。研究发现：乔利重视中国传统礼文化认知模式的保留与重建，注重称呼语表敬功能的再现；乔译看似极度求真，甚至为重现原文表敬功能而牺牲阅读效果，实则意图翻译语言教材，帮助本国外交人员学习汉语，求真与务实合二而一；霍译偏重务实，以现代英语文化之社交规范及家庭关系为参照背景，重建符合目的语读者认知习惯的称呼系统，同时进行有度创造，提升译文表情力，调整角色塑造效果；霍克思最大的翻译诉求是重建《红楼梦》应有的文学性，因而他的务实行为亦以求真为基础；两译者在敬称翻译的识解重构过程中展现出不同的行为偏好，符合各自社会身份及职业惯习之要求。