A Corpus-Based Study on the Translation of Jia Baoyu’s Character Image in Hong Lou Meng

Abstract

Based on a self-built corpus, this paper adopts both quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct a systematic comparative analysis of the translation of Jia Baoyu’s character image. The research focuses on the original text of Hong Lou Meng as well as its two English versions translated by Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang and by David Hawkes & John Minford respectively, examining multiple dimensions including lexis, syntax, punctuation, and descriptions of characters’ behaviors and appearances. The study reveals that the Yang version generally demonstrates a reproducing translation orientation. It tends to be close to the original expression at the lexical and syntactic levels with concise language, retains many structural features of Chinese in the translation of address forms, and presents a relatively implicit style in characters’ dialogues. It also shows considerable restraint in the use of punctuation and the depiction of actions, thus preserving the narrative style of the original text to a certain extent. In contrast, the Hawkes version is characterized by an enhancing translation approach. On the basis of faithfulness to the original content, it employs more flexible and diverse translation strategies: the characters’ utterances are more colloquial, the address forms and syntactic structures are more in line with English usage conventions, and the frequent use of exclamation marks strengthens emotional expression. In the descriptions of actions and appearances, Hawkes enriches details through amplification and domestication, enhancing the perceptibility and expressiveness of the character image. Overall, the differences in strategic choices across multiple dimensions between the two versions have shaped distinct pathways of character construction, reflecting the multi-dimensional mechanism of character image formation in literary translation.