Abstract

We all know that having names is of great importance in China. Because a name can reflect lots of qualities and characteristics, such as cultural spirits, traditional virtues, best wishes, memories of other things or people and the unique personal qualities and characteristics that a character has. Hong Lou Meng, as one of the treasures of our rich Chinese literature, is truly our pride of excellent national cultural heritage. There are almost 600 characters in this full-length novel, and most of them have their own names. It is a tough mission to name so many characters, from which we can tell that Cao Xue qin (the author) took great pains when he set the names.

Here are two English versions of Chinese classical literary masterpiece Hong Lou Meng that are generally accepted, one is A Dream of Red Mansions, translated by Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Yang and the other is the version translated by Hawkes, a professor at the university of Oxford, and an Australian Hong Xue expert John Minford, named The Story of the Stone. This paper, on the basis of predecessors’ researches, summarize the functions of persons’ names, the number of names in Hong Lou Meng and the kinds of names. Then it discusses the translation of persons’ names. As the study shows, the most effective methods are transliteration, literal translation, free translation and amplification.

Key words:  transliteration; free translation; literal translation; names

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

2. Literature Review-2

2.1 A General Introduction to Hong Lou Meng -2

2.2 Previous Studies on Appellation Tanslation in Hong Lou Meng-3

 2.2.1 Summary of Names3

 2.2.2 Research on Arts3

 2.2.3 Research on Translation Strategies4

 2.2.4 Research on Functional Equivalence.5

 2.2.5 Research on Ecological Translation...5

3. Research Methodology-6

3.1 Research Design-6

3.2 Data Collection and Data Analysis-6

  3.2.1 Current Research on Names...6

3.2.2 Functions of Names7

3.2.3 Classification of Names.8

4. Results and Discussion-8

4.1 Transliteration-8

4.2 Literal Translation-10

4.3 Free Translation-11

4.4 Amplification(French and Latin)-13

5. Conclusion-14

References-16