文化缺项的翻译探析——《红楼梦》两种英译本酒令的翻译比较

文化缺项的翻译探析——《红楼梦》两种英译本酒令的翻译比

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姓名：***申请学位级别：硕士专业：外国语言学及应用语言学

指导教师：***

20060401

摘 要

翻译不仅是两种语言之间的转换，更重要的是两种文化之间的交流。由于不同文化之间的固有差异，在翻译过程中不可避免地会产生一些障碍，文化缺项就是其中之一。

源自文化差异的文化缺项对文化信息的翻译和传递影响甚巨，因此有必要对这一问题进行深入探讨。中国古典小说《红楼梦》的文本以其卓越的艺术成就成为汉语研究的范本，其中的酒令蕴涵丰富的中国传统文化特点，因此在酒令的翻译过程中更容易产生文化缺项。《红楼梦》迄今的诸多英译本中，有两个完整的译本：杨宪益夫妇的A Dream of Red Mansions和霍克思与闵福德合作的The Story of theStone。本文以两个译本（前八十回）中的酒令英译文本为研究对象，从词汇和典故两个角度对比分析了两个译本中文化缺项的翻译方法和技巧特点，在前人研究理论的基础上，尝试性地提出补足文化缺项的四种策略。

文章最后指出，随着文化的不断自我补给，许多以前所谓的文化缺项已不成其为缺项，因此翻译工作者所采取的翻译策略应当随着文化交流情势的变化而变化。随着世界文化交流的进一步扩大，通过作为中外文化交流使者的翻译工作者的共同努力，一定能探寻出更为有效的处理和解决缺项问题的方法，尽可能地使这一问题给文化交流带来的负面影响减少到最低，从而增进民族之间的了解和促进世界文化的交流。

关键词：文化缺项 翻译策略 酒令 杨译 霍译

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Abstract

“Translation is not only a bilingual activity, but at the same time, a biculturalactivity.” Owing to connaturally cultural difference, barriers are of great ineluctability intranslation, in which cultural lacuna is one of the most knotty ones.

As cultural lacuna shows great influence on the translation of cultural information, itis of great significance for us to probe into the problem of cultural lacuna originatingfrom the distinctions of different cultures. Drinkers’ wager game in the classical novelHong Lou Meng, which has been the model for the study of Chinese with its superbartistry, abounds in multitudinous characteristics of Chinese traditional culture; therefore,it’s more apt to create cultural lacunas in its translation. Out of its English translationversions, two are complete versions: A Dream of Red Mansions by Yang Hsien–Yi andGladys Yang, The Story of the Stone by David Hawks and Minford. In this thesis, a studyis conducted based on the detailed comparative analysis of the translations of drinkers’wager game in the Yangs’ and Hawkes’ version pertaining to two perspectives of culturallacuna: words and allusions, thus eliciting enlightening translation strategies as the wayout through cultural lacuna in translation.

The thesis finally points out that as culture can feed itself with new elements in thecourse of translation, some previous cultural lacunas may mean nothing now; therefore,the translation strategies we adopt should change according to the development ofinternational cultural communication. Certainly, the strategies raised in this thesis are farfrom exclusive and adequate. To promote mutual understanding among nations andaccelerate global cultural exchange, we should strive to seek for more feasible and usefulstrategies to bridge the cultural lacuna in translation to the largest degree.Key words:cultural lacuna translation strategies drinkers’ wager game

the Yangs’ translation Hawkes’ translation

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Introduction

Cultural factors have long been one of the greatest difficulties in translation. Aslanguages are diverse, the cultures they reflect are also diverse. Wang Zuoliang (1989:34)has ever put it, in translating, “What is the great difficulty in translation? It lies in thedifferences between two cultures. What’s self-evident in one culture has to bepainstakingly explained in another culture.”(翻译最大的困难是什么呢？就是两种文化的不同。在一种文化里头有些不言而喻的东西，在另外一种文化里头却要费很大力气加以解释。) In translation practices, many translation problems and errors arederived from culture. Owing to connaturally cultural difference, barriers are of greatineluctability in translation, in which cultural lacuna is one of the most knotty ones. Thispaper attempts to reveal the major translation problems posed by culture and findappropriate ways out through the discussion of the translation of some aspects on culturallacuna. Translation has been becoming an important means of transmitting culture morethan ever. The new era calls for an increasingly close and frequent communication ofdifferent nations. As it has come to an age of globalization, translation as a tool of culturecommunication should be dealt with in a more conscious and sensible way. Through thediscussion of cultural lacuna in translation, the author of this thesis also attempts toreveal the tendency that cultural aspects of one language are transmitted into another.

The present thesis takes cultural lacuna as the focus of the discussion, looks into theissue from various perspectives. As cultural lacuna is a culture-specific phenomenon ofcommunication, receptors of foreign language will have vacuum of sense whenever theymet such cultural lacunas. Therefore, in the practice of translation, adjustments should betaken to enlighten the readers to have a rough idea about the cultural lacunas the originaltext causes in the TL. A good number of scholars on translation both native and aboardhave done much research in this aspect and put forward many excellent ideas. All these

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points of view offer some constructive ideas to guide our translation practice.

Taking the translation of drinker’s wager game in two English versions of Hong LouMeng for instance, the thesis puts forward some translation strategies which may beeffective to defeat the troubles caused by cultural lacunas and take two aspects of thecultural lacuna—words and allusions as examples to give a detailed analysis to theapplication of these translation strategies. And cultural lacuna, a special case thatobsesses the translators as well as TL readers yet merits research, will occupy us in thepresent thesis.

In chapter 1, relevant studies on cultural lacuna in translation and previous studies ofthe translations about cultural lacuna in two English versions of Hong Lou Meng arereviewed.

In chapter 2, the relation among language, culture and translation is first discussed asa theoretical basis to introduce the proposition of cultural lacuna, including the definitionof cultural lacuna, classifications of cultural lacuna and translation problems posed bycultural lacuna.

Chapter 3 is a comparative analysis of the translations on cultural lacuna in thedrinkers’ wager game in two English versions of Hong Lou Meng.

Chapter 4 pertains to countermeasures to cultural lacuna.And conclusion is drawn in the last part.

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1 Literature Review

1.1Relevant studies on cultural lacuna in translation and theirlimitations

Cultural lacuna is one of the major obstacles in the course of cross-culturalcommunication. Therefore, whether talking of the term “cultural lacuna” or not, a goodnumber of scholars in translation have done a lot of research in this aspect and had quitea few excellent ideas to guide our translation practice.

Nida’s concept of “dynamic” and “functional” equivalence in translation wasformulated first in 1964, but he restated and developed his theories in numerous booksand articles over the past 30 years. In his book Towards a science of Translation, Nidaput forward the term of dynamic equivalence. It is viewed from the angle of the receptor.This theory emphasizes the equivalence of effect, i.e., the effect of the rendering on theTL reader should be roughly equivalent to that of the original text on the SL reader. Laterin the book On Translation, Nida and Jin Di (1986:25) reaffirmed the proposition ofdynamic equivalence translation. They said, “The dynamic character depends on acomparison of two relations. That is to say, the relationship of TL receptors to the TL textshould be roughly equivalent to the relationship between original receptors and theorigna1 text. It is this double relationship which provides the basis for the dynamicequivalence”. Dynamic equivalence translation is to use the closest natural equivalenceto reproduce the SL messages. A translation of dynamic equivalence aims at completenaturalness or expressions of behavior relevant within the context of one’s own culture.The phrase “naturalness of expression” signals the importance of a fluent strategy to thistheory of translation.

In Culture, Language and Translating, Nida (1993) used the term of “functionalequivalence” to replace the term “dynamic equivalence”. He wrote, “the term ‘dynamic’

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has been misunderstood by some persons as referring only to something which hasimpact. Accordingly, many individuals have been led to think that if a translation hasconsiderable impact, then it must be a correct example of dynamic equivalence. Becauseof this misunderstanding and in order to emphasize the concept of function, it has seemedmuch more satisfactory to use the expression ‘functional equivalence’ in describing thedegrees of adequacy of a translation”. “Translation means communicating, and thisprocess depends on what is received by persons hearing or reading a translation. Judgingthe validity of a translation cannot stop with a comparison of corresponding lexicalmeanings, grammatical classes, and rhetorical devices. What is important is the extent towhich receptors correctly understand and appreciate the translated text. Accordingly, it isessential that functional equivalence be stated primarily in terms of a comparison of theway in which the original receptors understood and appreciated the text and the way inwhich receptors of the translated text understand and appreciate the translated text”. “Theterms ‘function’ and ‘functional’ seem to provide a much sounder basis for talking abouttranslation as a form of communication, since the focus is on what a translation does orperforms”. (Ibid)

In the “Introduction” of Rethinking Translation edited by Lawrence Venuti (1992),he tried to put forward the strategy of “resistant translation” against the traditionalsmooth tradition or fluent translation in another word. (cf, Chen Xiaowei, 2000) A fluentstrategy performs a labor of acculturation which domesticates the foreign text, making itintelligible and even familiar to the TL reader, providing him or her with the narcissisticexperience of recognizing his or her own culture in a culture other. Abusive fidelityclearly entails a rejection of the fluency that dominates contemporary translation in favorof an opposing strategy that can aptly be called resistancy. “Resistant translationstrategies, on the other hand, can help to make the translator’s work visible, inviting acritical appreciation of its cultural political function and re-examination of the inferiorstatus it is currently assigned in the law, in publishing, in education. On the other hand,

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resistant strategies can help to preserve the linguistic and cultural differences of theforeign text by producing translations which are strange and estranging, which make thelimits of dominant values in the target language culture and hinder those values fromenacting an imperialistic domestication of a culture other”.(Ibid) “It is to develop atheory and practice of translation that resists dominant target-language cultural values soas to signify the linguistic and cultural difference of the foreign text.” (Venuti, 1995)(Ibid) So it can also be called foreignizing translation. This strategy aims to retain“foreignness” instead of seeking similarity. It usually sends the TL readers abroad.

British translation theorist Peter Newmark proposed “a correlative approach oftranslation” on the basis of semantic translation and communicative translation whichwere put forward by himself previously. Newmark explained that the classification ofsemantic translation and communicative translation is not the ideal one, and easy to bemisunderstood as any translation cannot do without the conversion of semantic meaning.Newmark once wrote: “I take it that good writing should be closely translated, howevertrivial the writing or unimportant the subject of the source language text, simply as amatter of translating principle, which is to pursue the truth of what was written; thoughthe more banal the topic, and the more inconsequential the language, the more excusethere is for elegant variations; if the original is poorly written, it has to be elegantlyrewritten in the translation”. (cf, Yang Shizhuo, 1998) Newmark calls it as “a correlativeapproach to translation”. He holds the opinion that “the more important the language ofthe original or source language text, the more closely it should be translated”.(Ibid)

As a break with the traditional idea of equivalence and an important complement totranslation theories, the functional concept of translation put forward by German scholarsK. Reiss, H.T. Vermeer, Christiane Nord, has opened up a new perspective to translationstudies. In 1984, Vermeer and Reins put forward the concept Skopos /Scopos Theory.They said, “the overall frame of reference for the translator should not be the original andits function, as equivalence-based translation theory would have it, but the function or set

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of functions the target text is to achieve in the target culture”.(Chen, 2000) In 1991,Christiane Nord developed Skopos/Scopos Theory further and redefined the termtranslation. “Translation is the production of a functional target text maintaining arelationship with a given source text that is specified according to the intended ordemanded function of the target text (translation skopos). Translation allows acommunicative act to take place which because of existing linguistic and cultural barrierswould not have been possible without it”. (Ibid) In this definition of translation, Nordemphasizes the certain relationship between the source text and the target text. The“quality” and “quantity” of this relationship is determined by the demanded function oftarget text (translation skopos). Meanwhile it offers criteria of what cultural elementsshould be retained and what should be adapted in the particular context.

Many modern Chinese scholars also devoted themselves to the research oftranslation theories. Fu Lei, a well-known translator in China, on the basis of a thoroughcomprehension of different factors in translation puts forward an important point of viewknown as “resemblance in spirits”. “Translation aims at a likeness in spirit rather than inappearance.” He especially emphasizes the obstacles in translation caused by culturalelements: “The Chinese people’s mode of thinking is far more different from that of thewesterners. The westerners like abstraction and are good at analysis, while we Chineselike concrete analysis and are good at synthesis. If we don’t gain a thoroughunderstanding of the original in spirit and simply translate the literal meaning of theoriginal, the aesthetic perception of the original text will be lost and the meaning of ourrendering will be too obscure for the target readers to understand”.(Xiao, 1999)

Another great scholar in China, Qian Zhongshu holds the opinion that the ideal ofliterary translation is “state”: while we transfer the text from one language to another, weshould keep naturalness both in language and in style though there exist great differencesin the source and target language. And only when we manage to translate like that, canwe say that we have reached the ideal “state” of literary translation. (Liu Hailing, 2004)

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Wang Dongfeng, a doctor in translation in Beijing University, laid his emphasis inthe research of cultural default. Cultural default is “defined as absence of some culturalbackground knowledge shared by the author and his or her intended reader”. “What istransparent to the source language reader in terms of cultural default is often opaque tothe target language reader, the translator included.” (Wang Dongfeng, 1997) Culturaldefault is a culture-specific phenomenon in communication inside the same culturalcontext. Therefore, receptors with different cultural background will have the vacuum ofsense, while they come across such cultural default. The existence of cultural defaultshows that translation is not only a bilingual activity but also a bicultural activity. Thetranslators should know clearly about the cultural default, and make a correct judgmentof the background knowledge of his intended readers—the readers in the TL.

According to the ideas put forward by Cao Minxiang, equivalence in translationcontains two aspects: equivalence in the surface level and equivalence in the deep level.The former refers to the transformation of the surface structures from the SL to the TL. Itputs stress on the literal meaning and aestheticism in language structure; the latter refersto the equivalence in connotation. It also includes two aspects: one is the equivalence inthe implied meaning of the surface structures both in the source and target language. It isregarded as pragmatic equivalence from the point of view of pragmatics. The other is theequivalence between the connotation of the source text and literal meaning of the targettext. We call it the equivalence in connotation. It discards the characteristics of both thelanguage and the culture in the original text. From the analysis, we can conclude thatequivalence in deep level contains pragmatic equivalence and connotative equivalence.(Wang Ning, 1999)

Generally speaking, all the above translation theories are reasonable and effectivethough they view translation from different angles. In my opinion, no matter whatstrategy a translator adopts, the key point is to convey the information of the SL to theTL in the possibly highest degree, both in language and in culture, to fill in the cultural

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lacunas as much as possible.

Innovative thinking goes on in translation studies at the present time. The subject hascome of age, and there are many different approaches, different schools and differentperspectives. However, many of them involve in the equivalence in translation.

Absolute equivalence is the ideal criteria in literary translation. As there existintrinsic differences in languages and cultures of the source text and the target text,absolute equivalence can be approached but can’t be achieved. It should be viewed onthe basis of scientific analysis and from different levels, such as equivalence in languageform, equivalence in meaning, equivalence in effect. From the figure, we can see the toppoint is absolute equivalence. From the bottom to the top, there are the equivalence ineffect, the equivalence in effect and meaning, the equivalence in effect, meaning, andlanguage form, the quality of the translation increases progressively, accompanied bysuccessive degression of the quantity.

absolute equivalence

3rd level2nd level1st level source language

Figure 1(Ibid)

target language

In all, absolute equivalence can be achieved at different levels depending on thecultural capacity, aesthetic attainment and skills of the translator. We can only approachsuch equivalence but it will never be completed. Perhaps this is due to the hugedifference in culture and literary convention. (Ibid)

1.2 Previous studies of the translations about cultural lacuna in the two

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English versions of Hong Lou Meng

Since the coming out of translation of Hong Lou Meng, corresponding discussing andresearch has never ceased. Of all the disquisitions and other related materials the authorcan rein, the contents of study can be approximately divided into five kinds: (1) study ofcollectivity and strategy; (2) study of language and context; (3) study of belletristicrhetoric and figures of speech; (4) study on cultural orientation; (5) study of non-Englishtranslation versions such as versions of German, Russia and Uigur, etc. Except the fifthkind, the rest are pertaining to the English translation. As for the study on the issue ofcultural lacuna, it runs through the former four types, assumably conforming to thefollowing several analyzing modes.

One mode is from the concrete to the abstract, i.e., some specific phenomenon of alanguage point is first pointed out, and then the methods of disposing of all sorts of thesimilar problems are summarized and concluded after comparative analyzing. The mostcommonly-used indicative term is “cultural difference”. For instance, Fan Shengyu (范圣宇, 2004) calls the lacuna phenomenon “cultural difference”; and in three chapters—“peculiar elements in Chinese culture”, “the denotation of time” and “idioms andallusions”, he focuses attention on “how the Yangs and Hawkes handle those peculiars inChinese culture”, “trying to find the merits and demerits of their translating those culturalcontents and what we can learn from them”. Zhao Jianzhong (赵建忠, 2000) holds that“the translating of Hong Lou Meng is very difficult, not only because of the translator’spre-understanding of the original, but also because of the cultural screening caused bycultural differences, which will lead to translation distortion. But maybe the equivalenttranslation can solve the problem. So we can put it into practice in translating famousworks”.

Still a few other parlances largely identical but with minor differences can also befound, which is mainly collocated with the word “cultural”. Bai Jingyu and Kou Juxia (白靖宇,寇菊霞, 2002) probe into the means of dealing with “cultural problems” based on．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

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the analysis of English translations about Buddhism, the tea mores and the drinkers’ wagergame; they expatiate that “cultural problems in translation should be treated basically frommicrocosmical aspect—word, and in the grasp of macroscopical aspect—the wholecontext, in order to deliver cultural information”. Shan Yi (单谊, 2004) tries to “explorethe different translation methods of the idioms in A Dream of Red Mansions from theangle of cultural peculiarity, aiming to inquire into how to handle the cultural factors．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．appropriately in translation through analyzing the concrete examples”. Xiao Fei (肖菲,2002), based on the comparison of two English editions: The Story of the Stone and ADream of Red Mansions, explores “the strength and weakness in the different ways of thetwo translators in rendering into English the highly culturally-loaded phrases in both．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．versions. It also gives it s personal point of view on the principles that translators ofChinese literary works should bear in mind”.

The other mode is the comparative study of translation strategy contending betweendomestication and foreignization, usually adopting some certain cultural phenomenon likethe chapter title, idiom, trappings and verse and poem, etc. as a cut-in to break through.For example, through a comparative study of cultural information translation of poems inthe classical Chinese novel Hong Lou Meng, Zhong Shuneng and Ou Weihua (钟书能,欧卫华, 2004) “attempt to answer the question as to how to maintain the source languagecultural peculiarity in translation”; their research findings reveal that “the Yangs adopted amore semantic, documentary and source language & culture-oriented translation in orderto preserve and introduce Chinese cultural heritage, while Hawkes adopted a morecommunicative, instrumental and target language & culture-oriented translation with apurpose of pleasing the target reader”. Finally the co-authors conclude that “the strategy offoreignization works better for effectively preserving and dissimilating the sourcelanguage cultural peculiarity and heritage to the target reader”. And this is the standpointwhich claims the widest recognizing and accepting.

In a word, quite a few scholars have conducted their comparative studies on

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translation strategies against cultural contents adopted in the two English editions. Theleading points of view are: strategies in the Yangs’ version make the translations morefaithful to the original text; though Hawkes’ some course of actions make it moreacceptable for English readers, sometimes his translation alienates from the original text;and it is not the routine way for translators to track (“杨译本中使用的策略使译作更忠实于原著；霍克斯的某些做法虽然使译文易于为读者所接受，但偏离了原文，不是译者所应采取的常规方法”) (Ke Wenli, 1990). The strategies of the two persons should becombined together and made up between each other (“杨译本和霍译本中所采取的策略在翻译中应各取所长，交互使用”) (Liu Shicong, 1997). Anyhow, the centre of thosestudies lies in “which translation strategy is more faithful in conveying the contents of theoriginal text” or “what translation strategy translators should adopt in translation”.

From the above analysis we can see that as a hard nut to crack, whether or not theterm “cultural lacuna” is mentioned straightforward, a number of scholars in translationcircle have prosecuted their research on it. However, few scholars explicitly indicate theissue of cultural lacuna, to say nothing of casting special discussing and analyzing on it.

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2 Cultural Lacuna and the Present Study

2.1 The relation among language, culture and translation

When we come to talk about the issue of translation, one fact we can never elude isculture; also in order to clarify the relationship between translation and culture, we needto know the relationship between language and culture.

As we all know, superficially translation deals with different languages, that is, howto render what’s expressed in one language (generally known as source language, shortedto SL for convenience) into another language (generally known as target language,shorted to TL for convenience). Yet in essence, translation can never be donesuccessfully without omnidirectional and consummate consideration of the fact of culturedue to the intrinsic connection between language and culture.

Let’s first take a closer look at culture. Culture is a remarkable and intricate system.It’s ubiquitous, multidimensional, complex and all-pervasive. As an ambiguous andintriguing concept, culture has acquired at least 200 different kinds of definitions. One ofthe most classical definition of culture, which has been the basis of most modernanthropological conceptions of culture, was provided by the English anthropologistEdward Burnett Taylor in his “Primitive Culture” (1871): “Culture…is that complexwhole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs and any othercapabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”. (Zheng Shengtao,1994:16) Still more diversified definitions were put up as people in anthropologicalscience and many other research fields developed growing interest in culture anddiscussed cultural problems from their points of view according to the need of theirrespective disciplines. Richard E. Porter and Larry A. Samovar, American professors inspeech communication presented that “Culture is the deposit of knowledge, religion,timing roles, spatial relations, concepts of universe and material objects and group

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striving.” (Zheng, 1994:17) “Culture is everything one needs to know, master and feel inorder to judge where people’s behavior conforms to or deviates from what is expectedfrom them in their social roles, and in order to make one’s own behavior conform to theexpectations of the society concerned—unless one is prepared to take the consequencesof deviant behavior.” (Mary Snell-Hornby, 2001:39)

On all accounts, in terms of definition of culture, there are various statements givenby anthropologists, linguisticians and translators, etc. They are given in accordance withdifferent emphases laid on different aspects of culture. In this thesis, we will discuss aprevalent definition of culture in translation theory. Translation is the transfer of themeaning from SL to TL. Since language is part of culture, translation cannot simply bethe transfer of linguistic symbols. With the progress of civilization, communicationamong different nations becomes more and more frequent. Development of newtechnologies and information systems has made intercultural contact easier and cheaper.As a result, translation studies tend to be culturally-oriented approach rather thanlinguistically-oriented approach and more translation theories are marked by culturebrand. Therefore, Christiane Nord (1991) replaces translation with “interculturalcommunication”; Andre Lefevere (1992) (cf, Guo Jianzhong, 2000:272) regards it as“acculturation”; R. Daniel Shaw (1988) even coins a new word “transculturation” (Ibid).The contemporary English translation theorist Peter Newmark defines culture as “theway of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particularlanguage as its means of expression” (Newmark a, 2001:94). And according to the NewEncyclopaedia Britannica (15th ed., Vol.7), culture is “behaviour peculiar to mankindtogether with material objects that are part of its behaviour. Culture consists of language,ideas, beliefs, customs, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, works of arts, rituals,ceremonies and so on”.

From the last two definitions, we can introduce an interesting point, i.e. language ispart of culture as well as a means of expressing culture. The complicated relationship

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between language and culture demands further explanation. Language is a socialphenomenon as well as a cultural phenomenon, which cannot exist without culture asculture provides soil for it to grow and develop. Any sort of language exists in certaincultural background and is conditioned by that culture proper. Nevertheless, at the sametime language also holds a peculiar position in relation to culture. As is depicted in“Language and Culture” by Claire Kramsch: “To begin with, the words people utter referto common experience. They express facts, ideas or events that are communicablebecause they refer to a stock of knowledge about the world that other people share.Words also reflect their writer’s attitudes and beliefs, their points of view, which are alsothose of others. In both cases, language expresses cultural reality. … language embodiescultural reality. … language symbolizes cultural reality.” (2000:3) The Americantranslation theorist Eugene A. Nida, when stating the significance of language to culture,put more forcefully, “nothing is of greater strategic importance than the language throughwhich its beliefs are expressed and transmitted by which most interaction of its memberstakes place”. (Nida, 2001:78) From the above statements a conclusion can be drawn thatlanguage and culture are inextricably correlated to each other. Language is part of cultureand one of the most important carriers for culture. Language is not seen as an isolatedphenomenon suspended in a vacuum but as an integral part of culture. Just like two sidesof one coin, neither of them can ever be quite independent of the other. Or quotingBassnett (2001:13), language is “the heart within the body of culture”, the survival ofbody aspects being interdependent.

To sum up, translation, seemingly a mere inter-lingual activity, is tangibly closelyrelated to culture. Culture elements permeate language everywhere. The ideology, thevalue system, the moral concept, the history and literature, the social custom andregulations etc., all those factors and elements find their way into language. Generallyspeaking, people of the same language who share the same culture have no barrier incontextual communication (although sometimes confusion is obtained where some

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delicate and subtle elements such as dialects, jargons and so on haunt), as the culture ofthat language community would be bound up with it in multiple and complex ways.Contrarily, when people of different languages communicate with each other, it isinevitable to observe the advent of impediments, in which cultural lacuna is one of themost commonly seen phenomena. And cultural lacuna, a special case that obsesses thetranslators as well as TL readers yet merits research, will occupy us in the present thesis.

2.2 The proposition of cultural lacuna

2.2.1 Definition of cultural lacuna (the formation of cultural lacuna in practice andtheory)

Immutably the trait of non-correspondence is in existence between the culture of anation and that of another nation. That is to say, every certain nation possesses of thepeculiarity and specialty in cultural property. It is no other than the sempiternal culturaltraits among nations that unwraps the scrolls of widely diverse cultural resplendencebefore human being. And the phenomenon of cultural lacuna is apperceived just in thecollision and comparison of two types of culture.

The phenomenon of “lacuna” was first rooted out by the American linguist Hockett,C.F. in the 50s of the 20th century. He put forward the conception of “random holes inpatterns” (偶然的缺口) (Hockett, 1954) (cf, Wang Binqin, 1995) in comparing thegrammatical patterns of two different languages. Then a Russian specialist in literatureand culture Г.Д.Гчаев defined the national traits encumbering biculturalcommunications “заусеницы” (倒刺), namely “the things that throw down the gage”in cultural communication (“寻衅之物”) (Г.Д.Гчаев, 1967) (Ibid). Subsequentlymore scholars’ interest was aroused by discussing the phenomenon of “lacuna” in the 70s.巴尔胡达罗夫 (ЪархударовЛ.С., 1975) (Ibid), a translation theorist of the formerSoviet Union, adopted the term “Безэквивалентная лексика” (non-equivalence

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vocabulary, 无等值词汇) (Ibid) while comparing and contrasting words of differentlanguages; another two philologians 维.列夏金 and 科斯托马罗夫 (Верещагин,Костомаров, 1976) (Ibid) hold the same opinion; When another American culturalanthropologist Hale carried out his research concerning the color vocabulary in Australia,he found there was a lack of some basic appellations of color in local aborigines, therebyHale used “gap” (空白,间隙) (Hale, 1975) (Ibid) to describe his study; besides, 布达哥夫 employed the parlance of “тёмные места” (文本“暗点”) (Будагов, 1977) (Ibid).At the end of 80s, Russian translation theorist 索罗金 (Ю.Сорокин, 1989) (Ibid),together with others, put forward the theory of “лакуна” ①(缺项/空缺理论) indiscussing language and its national cultural characters. Thus the Lacuna Theory emergesas the times require.

Till now there are miscellaneous definienses pertaining to the phenomenon of lacuna,mainly the following three kinds:

(1) According to Russian scholar Сорокин: the term “лакуна” refers to things

which exist in one scope of culture yet do not exist in another scope of culture(“缺项”这个术语是指存在于一种异域文化而缺省于另一局域文化的东西)(Pan Huixia. & Li Hui., 2000) (trans. by author)

(2) “the elements in the source language, which are unintelligible, indescribable, orinexplicable, and easy to be misunderstood for the receptor language readers”(“原语中存在某种为异族文化接受者所不明白的、莫名其妙的、易于误解的东西，造成异族文化的空白”) (Wang Bingqin, 1995) (trans. by author)(3) “the phenomena of language and culture possessed by some specific nation,which do not exist in another nation” (“某个民族所具有的语言、文化现象，在另一民族中并不存在”) (He Qiuhe, 1997) (trans. by author)

Because the word “лакуна” by Ю.Сорокин is Russian, several English translations are graphemicallydifferentiated: “vacancy”, “blank” and “gap”, etc.

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①

The meaning and connotation of the three descriptions are basically consistent. Thefirst definition is in a view to the inbeing of culture, and the second one lays its emphasison the sense whereas the third contains the elements of language and culture. Accordingto the above, the author attempts to sum up the definition of “Cultural Lacuna” like this:

On account of the differentiae of historical background, social consuetude, religiousconvention and cultural ideology endowed with different nations proper, the conception,things or phenomena are particularly possessed by specific nations, which bear peculiarconnotations of cultural information. Contradistinctively the equivalent ways ofexpression cannot be found in another language; hence cultural lacuna comes intobeing.

2.2.2 Classifications of cultural lacuna

In the study of the theory of cultural lacuna, detailed classification of cultural lacunacannot be seen; further more, in order to smooth the way to a more thorough discussionabout cultural lacuna in translation, it is essential for us to make a classification first.Two classifications from different perspectives are to be presented at length: one is“WHAT” can be reckoned as cultural lacuna, i.e., categories of cultural lacuna; the otheris “HOW” cultural lacuna is suggested in the text, i.e., levels on which cultural lacunaoccurs. Still a third one goes in brief: types of lacuna cultural elements.2.2.2.1 Categories of cultural lacuna

The first category refers to the lacuna in denotations. For some culturally specificexpressions in the SL, there are no language items to represent them in the TL, not tomention the cultural connotation they contain in the SL culture. For instance: theexpressions such as “八股”, “老油条” are culturally specific and deep rooted in Chineseculture, which cause lacunas in both the language and the culture in English. “八股”(bagu), originally as a literary composition, is prescribed for the imperial civil serviceexaminations, which is closely related to Chinese feudal official system, known for its

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rigidity of form and its poverty in ideas. However, in the expression “党八股” putforward by Mao Zedong, “八股” has acquired its figurative meaning—the dogmatism inthe Chinese Communist Party. Both the original meaning and the figurative one lead tocultural lacunas in English. “油条” (youtiao) is a common Chinese food, usually forbreakfast. It is deep-fired twisted dough sticks, peculiar to Chinese. Furthermore, whenwe add a Chinese character “老” in front of it, the meaning is transferred into “thesophisticated and cynical people”. The cultural lacuna caused by this Chinese expressionmay put English readers in puzzle. What is the relationship between a kind of food forbreakfast and the principles of people’s behavior?

Similarly, there also exists such kind of culture-loaded expressions in English. Forinstance:

The stork visited the Howard Johnstons’ yesterday.

In the operation of translation, if we render it literally as “昨天鹳鸟拜访了霍华德· 约翰斯顿家。” the Chinese readers must be misled. In western mythology, all thebabies are brought home by storks. “A visit by the stork” implies the birth of a baby.Obviously, the literal translation here is inadequate and meaningless. It cumbers thereaders of the TL to grasp the real information. It should be rendered as “霍华德· 约翰斯顿家昨天添了一个小孩。” It is also unsuitable to render it as “弄璋之喜”, for theconnotation of the above example is to express the pleasure of having a girl born.

The second category of cultural lacuna lies in the lacuna in connotations. Both in theSL and in the TL, there are some language items which obtain the identical or similarliteral meaning. They are seemingly equivalents in the respective languages. But when itcomes to the lay of cultural connotation, they are greatly differentiated from each other,i.e., the same substance associates with different cultural connotations in the differentlanguages. Such expressions cannot be deciphered from the literal meaning. For example,in Chinese, a cat is always associated with the character of dexterity and smartness;whereas in the western legend, the cat is the devil incarnate, the guardian spirit of the

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medieval witches. If we translate the sentence “she is a cat.” into “她是一只猫。”, it failsto convey the cultural connotation and makes Chinese readers at a loss, because theimplied meaning is “她是一个包藏祸心的女人。” Another example, when we comeacross the English expression “a swan song”, the cultural lacuna arises when we render itas “天鹅歌”. In the west, it is said that swans can sing the sweetest song when they aredying; hence “a swan song” is employed to refer to the final works of poets, composersor actors, etc.

Likewise, let’s take a traditional Chinese wedding for instance. On traditionalChinese wedding ceremonies, the bride and the guests always eat “枣” (zao, Chinesedates), “栗子” (lizi, chestnuts), “花生” (huasheng, peanuts) and people scatter them tothe wedding bed to express their good wish to the new couple, as “枣栗子” is thehomonym of “早立子” meaning literally “having a child soon” in Chinese. As for “花生”, the two Chinese characters have the meaning of having both sons and daughters. Itis a common sense understandable by the Chinese. However, it’s hard to understand forEnglish readers because of the lack of Chinese cultural background. It is equallyinexplicable for the translators to render them into the corresponding translationequivalent due to the cultural elements with special Chinese characteristics. Without adetailed note, I am afraid the cultural connotation of it will be lost.

Another illustration is the associated meanings of the Chinese word “蜡烛”. “蜡烛”and “candle” share the same literal meaning— round stick of wax, etc with a wickthrough it, which is lit to burn with a light giving flame; yet when it comes to the culturalmeanings, they are distinctively differentiated. In the west, it is a custom to light birthdaycandles on a cake to celebrate the birthday, which has already been accepted by theChinese. But in Chinese, we have much more cultural connotations associated with “蜡烛”. We apply “红烛” to refer to teachers; in“风前之烛瓦上霜”, we apply “风烛、残烛”to indicate a dying old man; in “何如花烛夜，轻扇掩红妆”, we apply “花烛夜” toindicate the wedding night.

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2.2.2.2 Levels on which cultural lacuna occurs

In any case, as a language entity, cultural lacuna should be incarnated in specifictokens in concrete texts, demonstrating cultural peculiarity and difference, or translatorsprovide a context to suggest the lacuna. The tokes can be a word, a phrase or a wholesentence, while the context may extend to several sentences. Accordingly, the levels onwhich cultural lacuna occurs range from a word, a phrase, a sentence to even severalsentences. Some illustrations follow to present a clearer picture.

“待他（冯云卿）回身要进去的时候， 猛看见大门旁的白粉墙上有木炭画的一个拙劣的乌龟，而在此‘国骂’左边，乌亮的油墨大书着两条标语……” —茅盾．．．．《子夜》

The word “乌龟” (wugui, turtle) in this text serves as a trigger, which mayimmediately set Chinese readers recalling its default cultural meaning; yet to TL readers,“国骂” is absolutely a cultural lacuna. As in Chinese culture “乌龟” is an abusive termused to call people’s names, Chinese readers would have no difficulty in decipheringwhy it is referred to as “国骂” (national abuse) in the subsequent sentence. This exampleshows cultural lacuna occurs on the word level.

The following example of cultural lacuna occurs on the phrase level.

凤姐低了半日头，说道：“这实在没法了。你也该将一应的后事用的东西给他料理料理， 冲．一冲也好。” ．．

（第十一回，159页）

Hsi-feng lowered her head for a while. “There seem to be little hope,” she said at last. “If Iwere you I’d make ready the things for the funeral. That may break the bad luck.”．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

(Y 1, 163)

In the course of the long and industrious experience of life, people have faced a greatnumber of conflicts and hardships, many of which can’t be explained and overcome bycommon people, so they long for psychological consolation and by and by, superstitious

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custom comes into being. “冲” here belongs to the case. Hsi-feng suggests makingpreparation for the things of the funeral to break off the bad influence on the patient. Thetackling of contextual amplification by the translator is applied to add some information,which is implicitly expressed in the SL. The Yangs render the phrase “冲一冲” as “thatmay break the bad luck”. “The bad luck” is the complement part in the translation to fillthe cultural lacuna to make the translated version more acceptable to the English readerswithout any knowledge on Chinese customs.

Cultural lacuna on the sentence level can be illustrated by the following sentence.

雨村拍案笑道：“怪道这女学生读至凡书中有‘敏’字，皆念作‘密’字，每每如是。”

（第二回，32页）

Yu-tsun pounded the table with a laugh. “No wonder my pupil always pronounces min asmi and writes it with one or two strokes missing.”

Notes: A parent’s name was taboo and had to be used in an altered form.

(Y 1, 31)

In Chinese feudal society, there is a custom that the names of the emperors or one’sparents should be avoided as taboos. They can’t be pronounced as they are and should bepronounced or written in an altered form so as to show respects to the emperors or one’sparents. In the novel, the name of Tai-yu’s mother is Chia Min (贾敏), so she pronouncedmin (敏) as mi (密) to show respects to her mother. According to Wang Dongfeng (1998),the absence of some cultural background knowledge shared by the author and hisintended readers should be supplemented with the change of the intended readers. In thecourse of converting the Chinese version into English, the intended readers also changefrom the Chinese to the English. Therefore, the Yangs employ the annotation to explainthis Chinese custom to the English readers to make up the cultural lacuna on this culturalknowledge.

Cultural lacuna occurring on the contextual level usually involves more than one

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sentence to guarantee the logical development of the idea or plot, the lacuna informationthus becoming even subtler to perceive. The following example shows us the peculiarityof this kind of lacuna phenomenon.

Bright red costumes, with hats, shoes and stockings to match, are to be all the craze in thespring. Smart women will have to be careful not to yawn in the street in case some short-sightedperson is on his way to post a letter.

(Kong Huiyi, 1989)

Mailbox in Britain is painted red, as opposed to that of green in many other countries.So the writer cleverly draws a connection between the mailbox and the red costumessmart women wear to poke fun at them.2.2.2.3 Types of lacuna cultural elements

Besides the above two sorts of classifications, another approach to classify thecultural lacuna is to examine the variety of cultural knowledge that is treated as lacunaelements. As a culture consists of vast variety of patterns, the lacuna cultural elements ina SL are also diverse. Though it is impossible to exhaust all the patterns, the authorattempts to enumerate six major types to show the diversity of lacuna cultural elementsin SL, merely the appellations of types: 1) legends and myths; 2) historical events; 3)religious stories; 4) literary stories; 5) customs and habits; 6) specific culturalassociations of general terms (e.g. “vinegar”). Further illustration and explanation areoverleaped in consideration of the length of the thesis.

In a word, as language is the carrier of culture as well as the media of culturalcommunication, and culture is distinctive from one another, the appearance of culturallacuna is unavoidable in the process of translation.2.2.3 Translation problems posed by cultural lacuna

Cultural lacuna turns out to be a tough nut for the translator to crack, as the writer ofthe original text assumes his intended readers share with him the same cultural

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background and experience, but for readers from a different culture, usually the originalself-evident cultural information may be naught in their memory schema. They areunable to fill in the necessary information to link up with the message provided in thetext. There would appear, as a result, vacuum of sense in their understanding of the textand they would fail in achieving coherence in their interpretation of the TL text.Therefore, inadequate consideration and improper tackling of cultural lacuna by thetranslator may result in serious translation problems or errors. Problems posed by culturallacuna are not rare in our translation practices. Generally speaking, they fall into threegroups: under-translation, over-translation and mistranslation. A detailed discussion ofeach follows.

2.2.3.1 Under-translation

Under-translation occurs when the TL text cannot be understood and accepted by theTL readers mainly because the translator has not provided adequate cultural informationin the translation to assist the TL readers to decipher the implied meanings of the originalcultural speciality. As we know, the writer of the SL text only directs at his intendedreaders when he writes. He economizes his writing to a great extent so long as thepotential readers can understand. But when the text is translated into another language,namely the TL, the readers of the translation would be quite different from the SL readers,not only in language but also in cultural background and experience. If the translatortreats the TL readers the same as the SL readers, and translates the original text literally,the translation would be overloaded for the TL readers, who would fail to understand theTL text due to the lack of relevant cultural information in their cognition schema. Takethe following sentence for example.

They failed at last. It was a fight between David and Goliath.．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

Version:他们最终失败了。这是一场大卫和哥利亚之间的战争。．．．．．．．．．．．

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“David and Goliath” employed by the original writer is self-evident in the originaltext for his intended English readers, which comes from a story in Bible. David, ashepherd boy once had a fight with Goliath, a giant. David won the fight by killingGoliath. Later the words are used to refer to the fight or competition between the weakand the strong with the weak winning at last. English readers would have no difficulty indeciphering catch the connotations. But the translator has obviously under-translated theculturally specific expressions, for the Chinese version does not offer enough culturalinformation to help the TL readers grasp the implied meaning of the cultural lacuna—asfar as the Chinese readers are concerned.

The under-translated cultural lacuna, as can be concluded from the above example,only superficially preserves the original text form, but is actually unintelligible to the TLreaders. Another example can give us a clearer idea.

“我曾经细想：阿Quei，阿桂还是阿贵呢？倘使是他号叫月亭，或者是在八月间做过生日，那一定是阿桂了。” 正传》）

（鲁迅《阿Q

version: “I have given the question careful thought: Ah Quei?—would that be the ‘Quei’meaning cassia or the ‘Quei’ meaning nobility? If his other name had been Moon Pavilion, or ifhe had celebrated his birthday in the month of Moon Festival, then it would certainly be the‘Quei’ for cassia.

(Translated by Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang)

The Chinese text is clear at a glance for the Chinese readers who know well thetraditional Chinese custom of making a sacrifice in a pavilion on Moon Festival —whichis in lunar August—to the moon, the shadow in which is believed to be a cassia tree. Butmost English readers have no inkling idea of the Chinese custom. As the translatorsdidn’t give any further information in the translation, the English version is not at allcomprehensible to the TL readers. It is under-translated.

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2.2.3.2 Over-translation

The over-translated text tends to “be more specific than the original, to include moremeanings” (Newmark, b 2001:39). As the additional meanings do not exist in the originaltext, they are apt to mislead the TL readers. Over-translation often occurs when thetranslator “cleverly” substitutes the original cultural image with one from the targetculture but fails to take notice of the nuance between the two, or neutralizes the originalcultural image to such an extent as to distort the original meaning.

Subtle as cultural lacuna is, if the translator imprudently substitutes the originalcultural image with one from the target culture, the implied meaning of the originalculture, in most cases, would be wrongly transferred. Let’s take a look at the followingexample.

周瑞家的听了笑道：“阿弥陀佛，真笑死人的事！等十年都未必这样巧呢”。 （第七．．．．回）

Version: “God bless my soul!” Zhou Rui’s wife claimed. “You should certainly need some．．．．．．．．．．．．．．patience! Why, you might wait ten years before getting all those things at the proper time!”

(H 1, 169)

As far as the Chinese readers are concerned, the exclamation “阿弥陀佛” made byZhou Rui’s wife suggests that she lives in a culture under Buddhist influence andbelieves in Buddha, Karma, and preordination, etc. In the English version, however, thetranslator used a popular Christian exclamation “God bless my soul” to show thewoman’s surprise. It is easy for the TL readers to understand and accept, butsimultaneously the English readers may wonder if it is the actual case that an ordinaryChinese woman in Qing Dynasty also believes in Christianity. The English versioncontains more meaning than the original text. It is over-translated, and as a resultmisleads the TL readers to believe what is not true.

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When translating texts with cultural lacuna, if the original cultural image is toospecific to be translated literally, the translator may choose to de-culturalize the originalcultural image and neutralize the TL text by translating the intended meaning directly.The translator should think over the original meaning before bringing out the intendedmeaning embedded in the original culture. Inadequate consideration is apt to breedtranslation error.

Another example is presented.

欲去牵郎衣， 郎今到何处？ 不恨归来迟，

莫向临邛去。．．

(孟郊 《古别离》)Version: You wish to go, and get you rope I hold.

Where are you going—telling me, dear—today? Your late returning does not anger me,

But that another steals your heart away.

(Translated by Fletcher)

The end line of the Chinese poem employs the allusion of the story of Sima Xiangru(司马相如) and Zhuo Wenjun (卓文君), who met in Linqiong (临邛) (present Qionglai(邛崃) County in Sichuan Province) and fell in love with each other. In the poem, thespeaker expresses her wish that her husband, after leaving home, won’t find anotherwoman and desert the home. The term “临邛” conveys some default sentimentalinformation of the heroine in a dismal strain. The translator realized the difficulty oftranslating the cultural information of the original text. He directly brought out themeaning intended by the original culture and neutralized the TL text. But the neutralizedtext doesn’t keep to the original meaning. The speaker in the TL text openly criticizes the

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“another” who steals her husband’s heart away when the speaker of the original textsimply implores her husband not to follow the example of Sima Xiangru and ZhuoWenjun. Compared with the original implicit expression, the English version is too openand direct, which doesn’t fit the original text nor the speaker’s identity. So the TL text isover-translated with the additional meaning distorting the original message and image.2.2.3.3 Mistranslation

Another translation problem posed by cultural lacuna is mistranslation.Mistranslation occurs in translating texts with cultural lacuna mainly because thetranslator fails to get a thorough understanding of the meaning and function of thecultural crytic connotations of the SL. In spite of the fact that the translator has given adetailed study of the source text, he would still, as luck would have it, make mistakes.What the translator often doesn’t realize is that he is trapped by cultural false friends.False friends are “words which seem to be identical in form and meaning but whichinvolve subtle differences, especially in associative meaning” (Nida, 2001:101) Becauseof the cultural differences the formally close words from different cultures may carryquite different associations. If the translator doesn’t give a full consideration to thecultural background of the words, he may imprudently substitute one for another.Mistranslation thus arises. Take the following text as an example.

华大妈看他排好四碟菜，一碗饭，立着哭了一通，化过纸锭，心里暗暗地想，“这坟里．．的也是儿子了”。

（鲁迅《药》）

Version: As old Chuan’s wife watched the other woman set out four dishes of food and abowl of rice, then stand up to wail and burn paper money, she thought: “It must be her son in．．．．．．．．．．that grave too”.

(Translated by Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang)

“纸锭” in the original text is a cultural lacuna to English readers. As we know, in

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Chinese culture it is a kind of funeral object made with paper into the shape of money.The superstitious people believe that the dead people on their way to the nether worldcan use the “money” to bribe the ghosts who otherwise may cast trouble for them.Therefore the relatives of the dead often burn the papers in the shape of money in front ofthe grave as sacrificial offerings. In the English version, the translator put “纸锭” into“paper money”. The two terms seem literally correspondent. But if we give a secondthought to the cultural associations of the two, we can find out that they are actuallyvastly apart. “Paper money” in English simply refers to the real money made of paper,like banknotes and checks. It’s obvious that “纸锭” and “paper money” are actually falsefriends. The word-for-word rendering of “paper money” for “纸锭” may cause theEnglish readers, who is ignorant of the Chinese custom, to wonder why the womanshould burn money before the grave. The words “纸锭” are mistranslated.

As we discussed in the previous part, cultural lacuna may occur on varying levelsand cover a wide range of elements. Some descriptions of cultural message in the SLtexts are obvious and easy to perceive, while others may be hidden and uncommon.Owing to his lacking in some of the SL cultural background knowledge, the translatormay mislead the SL text himself thus resulting in mistranslation. For example:

The King visits the (Yankee) to confer about Army appointments and to cure the King’s．．．．．．．．．．．．．evil by his touch. (Dusby Ian: Fifty American Novels)．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

version: 国王驾到，同这位扬基佬商量军队的任命和和用触诊给国王治病事宜。．．．．．．．．

The phrase “to cure the King’s evil by his touch” is mistranslated into “用触诊给国王治病”. Obviously, the translator is ignorant of the cultural information of “King’sevil”. In the Medieval time, the British people believed that scrofula (瘰疬) could becured as soon as the king’s hand touched it. It was the custom with them to ask the kingto cure the scrofula. Hence the phrase “King’s evil” has become an elegant name for

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scrofula. As the translator doesn’t know this custom, the phrase was translated literally.As a result, mistranslation is created.

2.3 The objectives and subjects of the present study

2.3.1 The objectives of present study

This study aims at two objectives. One is to find out the different translating featuresof the Yangs’ and Hawkes’ in their tackling some aspects on cultural lacuna, in virtue ofthe comparison of some words and allusions in the drinkers’ wager game in two Englishversions of Hong Lou Meng. By making the comparison, translators could get a survey ofmajor translation methods of cultural lacuna employed by the Yangs and Hawkes, whichwill serve as a useful guidance to the translation practices, also a hint and bedrock toelicit possible and feasible strategies as countermeasures to cultural lacuna in succedentdiscussing part—the other objective.2.3.2 The subjects of present study2.3.2.1 Drinkers’ wager game and culture

“Drinkers’ wager game (a drinking game/drinking games), is a game to add to the funwhile drinking in old times; in the game a person is put up to be in charge, the others chantpoems in turn or play some other games according to game rules; losers or those who actagainst the game rules will be penalized to drink more.” (“酒令,是旧时饮酒时助兴的游戏。推一人为令官,余人听令轮流说诗词,或做其他游戏,违命或负者罚饮。”) (《辞．．海》) (trans. by author). This shows that line of drinkers’ wager game is a kind of languageform, also reflecting the relationship between language and culture. In Hong Lou Meng,the characters in drinking games recite sentences in Chinese classical poems or quotewords and expressions from Chinese allusions, densely infusing the drinking gamelanguage with rich odor of Chinese culture. Moreover, the languages in drinking gamesconcurrently bear features of personality as they are coming out of vivid characters, in

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which different language of distinct characters mirror their idiosyncrasies in backgroundinformation—breeding, status, experience, individuality and temper, etc. Thoseextemporizing words can be reckoned as the voice of the speakers’ hearts. Herein theEnglish translations of drinking games in Hong Lou Meng helps to comprehend andappreciate the peculiar language with rich and profound tint of Chinese culture, what’smore, apt to create cultural lacunas, as the thesis takes them as the object of study.2.3.2.2 The quotation text of the examples of drinkers’ wager game

2.3.2.2.1The two authoritative English renditions of Hong Lou Meng (where the

quoted English translation text of the examples of drinkers’ wager game come from)

The Chinese classical novel Hong Lou Meng has been translated into more thantwenty languages with over one hundred translation versions. Out of its English translationversions, two are complete versions. The Story of the Stone is a complete translation infive volumes. Its first three volumes containing the previous eighty chapters weretranslated by David Hawkes published in 1973, 1977 and 1980 respectively, while thefourth and fifth volumes, containing the rest forty chapters, were translated by JohnMinford , the son-in-law of David Hawkes’s, and they were published in 1982 and 1986by Penguin Books Ltd, Harmonsworth, Middlesex, England. A Dream of Red Mansions isthe other complete English version in three volumes translated by Yang Hsien–Yi andGladys Yang. They were published by Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, China, in 1978.These two versions are the most well-known and popular English renditions and theyremain to be the only two complete translations so far as well. Also, they are reckoned asthe two authoritative English renditions of Hong Lou Meng.

Besides the public praise of the authority upon the two editions, the other importantelement of pitching on them is that the author takes into account the translators’ respectivecultural background: great masters, not only commanding a good mastery of Chinese and

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English languages, but accomplished in oriental and occidental cultures. Moreover,respecting SL, it is a coincidence that one group of the translator partners is Chinese (ifleaving out of account of Gladys), the other, English. Their handling and disposing of theSL culture plenitudinously demonstrate their distinct value-oriented judgments to theChinese culture, thus enriching the comparative analyzing of translation from a supposedeven more field of vision.

An extra explanation compulsory for the author to make here is –– the Chinese textsand its counterparts of English translations, namely, all the examples of drinkers’ wagergame listed in the thesis, Chinese or English, are only in the confines of the first eightychapters. The reasons lie in one: the first eighty chapters are verified and corroborated tobe productions by Cao Xueqin of self in the mass; and the other: Hawkes’ laboringcovers merely the first eighty chapters, thus laying convenience on the comparativeanalysis of the present thesis.2.3.2.2.2

The Chinese quotation text of the examples of drinkers’ wager game

from the original work Hong Lou Meng

The first and basic problem a translator barges up against in translating a literarywork is the choice of the edition of the original copy. Yet it seems that some authors ofmany articles and papers analyzing and commenting English translations of Hong LouMeng published in recent years do not care about the crucial point. In their discussion,they quoted the Chinese text not according to the certain original work Hong Lou Mengthe translators consult, but from an arbitrary edition they could touch at random.

For instance, in A comparative study of the rhetorical devices of chapter titles in twoEnglish versions of Hong Lou Meng (王宏印, “《红楼梦》回目辞趣两种英译的比较研究”,《外语与外语教学》, 2002(1)), the author Wang quoted from the Yangs’ andHawkes’ version while comparing the translation of the sixty-fifth chapter title“贾二舍偷娶尤二姨 尤三姐思嫁柳二郎”:

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Jia Lian’s second marriage is celebrated in secret;

And the future marriage of San-jie becomes a matter of speculation. (H 3, 6)A Hen-pecked Young Profligate Takes a Concubine in Secret

A Wanton Girl Mends Her Ways and Picks Herself a Husband (Y 2, iii) ①

Then Wang indicated that “Hawkes adopts reverting method of merely transliterating‘贾琏’ to ‘Jia Lian’ and ‘尤三姐’ to ‘San-jie’, and omits ‘尤二姐’and ‘柳湘莲’ , whileat the same time utilizes the repetition of ‘marriage’ to narrate the current chapter contentin antitheses” (霍译采用还原法只译贾琏和尤三姐，略去尤二姐和柳湘莲，变为用婚姻的重复来对照述说本回的内容). It is quite exact and right. But subsequently he said“…in the Yangs’ Version, the translator utterly steers clear of referring to the appellationof concrete characters. He renewedly designs the chapter title by visualizing andconceptualizing, with exercising of some comments on those characters while narrating. ”(杨译则完全绕开对具体人物称谓的提及，他运用形象化加概念化的手法重新构思回目，在叙事中对人物有所评论) And finally drew a conclusion after a series ofcomparisons that “…the common ground of the two translators lies in adopting themethod of reverting and abstracting to grasp the main feature when confronting somespecific appellation hard to translate, and narrate in brief with visualizing and commentingin compatibility. With regard to the symmetry and forcefulness of the writing style, Iwould rather think that the Yangs’ manipulation is better than the Hawkes’. ” (二者的共同点是：在避开认为不可译的排行称谓时采用还原法或抽象法抓其特点,撮要叙事,兼具形象和评论。就行文的对称和泼辣而言,毋宁说杨译优于霍译。) Apparently Wangcommitted a blunder here, because the sixty-fifth chapter title that the Yangs’ versionconformed to is “膏梁子惧内偷娶妾 淫丧女该行自择夫” , i.e., the frames of referenceof the said two translators are totally different. As a matter of fact, in the “Publisher’sNote” of the Yangs’ version and the “Introduction” of the Hawkes’ version, the two

Appertaining to the quoted translation in the two kinds of Hong Lou Meng English renditions in the paper proper, “H3, 6” stands for the 6th page in the 3rd volume of the Hawkes’ version; “Y 2, iii” stands for the iiith page in the 2ndvolume of the Yangs’ Version. (similarly hereinafter; and the order in which editions are printed, to see the addendum

①

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masters have made it clear that on what Chinese edition their translations are basedrespectively. In Publisher’s Note, Yang professed: “The numerous editions of this novelcan be divided into two main groups: those based on the early manuscript copies of theeighty-chapter version, and those based on the later 120-chapter printed edition. Our firsteighty chapters have been translated from the photostat edition published by the People’sLiterature Publishing House, Peking, in September 1973 according to a lithograghicedition printed by the Yu-cheng Press, Shanghai, in about 1911. This Yu-cheng editionhad been made from a manuscript copy kept by Chi Liao-sheng of Chien-lung era. Thelast forty chapters are based on the 120-chapter edition reprinted by the People’sLiterature Publishing House, Peking, in 1959 from the movable-type edition of 1792.TheChi Liao-sheng manuscript of the first eighty chapters is one of the earliest copies extent.In our translation certain minor errors and omissions made by the man who copied theoriginal manuscript have been corrected according to other versions.” Hawkes stated in“Introduction” that “In translating this novel I have felt unable to stick faithfully to anysingle text. I have mainly followed Gao E’s version of the first chapter as being moreconsistent, though less interesting, than the other ones; but I have frequently followed amanuscript reading in subsequent chapters, and in a few, rare instances I have made smallemendations of my own.” Therefore, the Yangs’ Version is based on Youzheng Copy (有正本)，alias Qixu Copy (戚序本), and the Hawkes’ Version, Gengchen copy (庚辰本). Ifthe original texts that two translators pursuant to are completely different, how we canjudge whether one’s translation is better or worse than the other’s. In the above case, wewould rather say that the sixty-fifth chapter title of Youzheng Copy is better than thecounterpart of Gengchen copy, than that the Yangs translate better than Hawkes.

From the exemplification, it is easy to see the neglect of difference of the originalcopy edition will jeopardize the result of translation analyzing and commenting, and evenleads serious academic study into crossroads. Hong Lou Meng conceives multitudinous

“References”)

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copy editions, in which wording and phrasing varies a lot. With an eye to the saidcircumstance, the Chinese quotations of the examples of drinkers’ wager game from theoriginal work Hong Lou Meng in the thesis are all from Appreciation of Poetry, Song andOde in Hong Lou Meng compiled by Cai Yijiang (蔡义江, 2005), in which Cai has madean integrated and pigeonholed collection of poem, verse, drinkers’ wager game andallusion, etc., which desire for elaboration, and expatiated on them. In this way, the authorcan not only leave out the inconvenience of lookup, comparing and contrasting, but avoidthose mistakes such as statistical lapses, firing into the wrong flock and so on. It is certainthat the quoted English texts from the two versions embrace more or less discrepancies ofwording and discourse in their respective referred Chinese texts—Youzheng Copy,Gengchen Copy. Luckily, those discrepancies would not bring about palpably distincttransmutation in language information and tangibly distortion in cultural genre; still theoriginal texts and the translation texts could match and justify themselves. Although theauthor of the present thesis is doomed to escape similar mistakes like Wang’s, the aboveextra elaboration is needed here; for in the author’s consciousness, it is obligatory for aqualified translator to bear some knowledge of Copy Study, getting far away from makinga laughingstock of himself before experts.

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3 A comparative analysis of the translations on culturallacuna in the drinkers’ wager game in two English versions ofHong Lou Meng

3.1 Translator as a mediator in relation to translating cultural lacuna

So far, we have looked into various aspects of cultural lacuna. The existence ofcultural lacuna in the translating process, as it were, poses a big challenge to thetranslator, who stands in between the original text and the TL readers. It is, therefore,essential to examine how the translator works in the whole translating process for asatisfactory translation. The present part is specifically allotted to discussing thetranslator as a mediator in relation to translating cultural lacuna.

The role of the translator is crucial in the translating process. Translation is a two-fold communicating activity, which involves the communication between the translatorand the original writer (hence the original text) on one hand, and that between thetranslator and the TL readers on the other hand. As is turned out, the translator holds aunique position in the course of the translating process. He plays the role of a mediatorbetween the SL writer and the TL readers. When the SL writer composes a text, he ispresenting an offer of information to his intended readers. In the case of translation, thetranslator first acts as a reader of the SL text, and then as a TL text producer to informthe TL readers, located in a situation under target-culture conditions, about the offer ofinformation made by the SL writer so that the TL reader can communicate with the SLwriter across time and space.

In order to drive home the TL readers the information embodied in the SL text, thetranslator must first of all have a clear understanding of the SL text. As he is notnecessarily the intended reader of the SL writer, the translator’s reading of the SL text is

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likely to be more difficult than that by the intended readers of the original text. In theattempts to make sense of the incoming information when reading the SL text, thetranslator, apart from applying the knowledge stored in his memory, often has to consultsecondary sources, which may range in types from miscellaneous reference books todocuments, anthologies and many others. In addition, his role as a producer to send thesource-text information to the TL readers complicates his reading of the SL text.Different from ordinary readers, the translator reads in order to produce, or put in anotherway, decodes in order to encode. He is, in a sense, a privileged reader of the SL text. Hisreading of the SL text tends to be more thorough and more deliberate than that of theordinary readers. The difference between the translator as a reader and the ordinaryreaders stands out most strikingly in the case of reading texts with cultural lacuna (as faras the TL readers are concerned). The translator is not necessarily the intended readers ofthe SL text, so a majority of the cases of default or originally self-evident culturalpeculiarities in the SL may turn out to be alien to him. With the burden of understandingthe original text thoroughly, the translator is obliged to try every means to probe into thelacuna cultural information and to understand the original writer’s intention of usingcultural default (cultural lacuna to the TL readers actually) therein. Cultural lacuna addsto the complicacy of the translator’s reading process. Slight carelessness or inadequatecultural knowledge may lead to misreading of the SL text and as a consequence, to over-translation, under-translation or mistranslation, which have been discussed in theprevious part.

On the other hand, the translator, after understanding the original text, sets out toproduce the TL text. (In actual practices, the two actions often overlap.) His role as theproducer of a text differs from that of the original writer who produces the SL text, inthat both the writing materials and the intended readers they are concerned with are quitedifferent. For one thing, what the translator writes into the TL text is restricted to theinformation embodied in the SL text. When the original writer feels free to choose any

36

words to express ideas, the translator is pinched between the set words of the originaltext and the need to convey the message naturally. Lu Xun (鲁迅), an experienced andproductive translator himself, vividly expressed the torment a translator experiences: “我向来总以为翻译比创作容易，因为至少是无需构思。但到真的一译，就会遇着难关，譬如一个名词或动词，写不出，创作的时候可以回避，翻译上却不成，也还得想，一直弄到头昏眼花，好像在脑子里面摸一个急于要开箱子的钥匙，却没有。”(Luo Xinzhang, 1984: 299) So with the restriction imposed on it, translation is an activitythat can never be performed as one pleases. Translation tends to be more difficult thancomposition itself. Next, the intended readers of the TL text are completely differentfrom those of the original text, not only in language capacity but also in culturecompetence. The TL text is directed at the readers of another language-culture that maybe dissimilar with the SL culture in many ways and to a great extent. Therefore, when thetranslator attempts to convey in the target text the information of the original text, hemust take the TL readership into consideration. In producing the TL text, he has tocreatively make some additions, adaptations or adjustments of the original text so as toget the information across to the TL readers. The TL readership exerts great influence onthe translation of texts with cultural lacuna. In the original text, the writer takes accountof the presumed cultural knowledge of his intended readers, and makes the sharedcultural knowledge implicit for economical writing. But for the TL readers, the originalcultural default may turn out to be unintelligible due to the cultural incompatibilities, i.e.,cultural lacuna. It is, therefore, advisable that the translator should make an assumptionof the TL readers’ cultural knowledge and accordingly readjust the relationship betweenthe explicit and implicit information in the TL text.

In a word, the translator mediates between the SL writer and the TL readers, and isinevitably stretched between two cultures. Whatever roles he plays, a reader or aproducer, the translator is always acting in a most conscious and active way. It is owingto the effort of the translator that translation as a means of cross-cultural communication

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finally gets accomplished, which makes the following groping for different translators’distinctive features of translation indispensable and significant.

3.2 Words of cultural lacuna in the drinkers’ wager game

Chinese and English belong to different language families. Though they share manythings in the culture each language carries, each language has its own specific properties,for which there is certain to be cultural barriers in the translation between them.

As translators, we are primarily concerned with communicating the overall meaningof a string of linguistic signs. To achieve this, we need to start by decoding the units andstructures that carry some meanings. The smallest unit we would expect to express acertain meaning is a word. Peculiar cultural experiences of a community can generatewords and expressions specific to its culture proper. A great deal of cultural differencescan be perceived in words. If we can find good methods to translate these culturallyspecific words, it proves that we can overcome the barriers caused by cultural differences,which can be demonstrated as it is possible to translate words of cultural lacuna.Accurate understanding and proper translation of words is the key to the breaking-through of the barriers in intercultural communication.

From the other facet, among the factors of a language, it is the vocabulary thatcarries the most culture information and reflects human life thoroughly. With its longhistory of development, Chinese has its own cultural connotations. That’s why we cannotalways find its equivalent words in other languages. As the word is the most active andthe liveliest element of a language, the changes in social life and the development innational culture can be reflected in words quickly and directly, so we must pay moreattention to the analysis and comparison of the cultural connotation of words whichreflect the cultural differences in different countries.

Out of the above two facets of consideration, the author firstly takes aim at the wordsof cultural lacuna in their respective translations of the drinkers’ wager game, to explorein this part how the Yangs and Hawkes cope with them, why they take these methods to

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deal with them, what circumstances affect their translation strategies, what effect do theyproduce, how to manipulate the relationship between denotative and connotativeinformation in transferring cultural information to English readers, what gain and loss intheir translations, etc.

For the sake of being informed with the propaedeutic knowledge of drinkers’ wagergame, let’s catch a glimpse of a paragraph from Cai (2005:201):

行酒令为戏的花样很多，书中宝玉交待这次行令的办法说：“如今要说‘悲’、‘愁’、‘喜’、‘乐’四字，却要说出‘女儿’来，还要注明这四字的原故。说完了，饮门杯。酒面要唱一个新鲜时样曲子；酒底要席上生．．．．．．风一样东西—或古诗、旧对、《四书》《五经》成语。”门杯，每人行令时．．．．．．．．规定要喝的面前的一杯酒。酒面、酒底，饮门杯之前和之后要出的节目或．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．要说的诗词、趣语。．．．．．．．．．

It is a passage when Cai introduces the drinkers’ wager game first given a detaileddescription in the 28th chapter of the novel. From the passage together with the definitionof drinkers’ wager game, “酒面”, “酒底”, “门杯” and “令官” can be inferred as fourindispensably basic elements in a drinkers’ wager game. The contradistinguishinginstances of the four respective translations are pigeonholed as:

门杯 酒面 酒底Example 1:

…:“…说完了饮门杯。酒面要唱一个新鲜时样曲子; 酒底要席上生风一样东西—或古诗、．．旧对、《四书》《五经》成语。”

(女儿酒令五首 第二十八回) (Cai, 201)

…: “…, you’re entitled to drink the wine in front of you. Only before drinking it, you’ve．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．first got to sing some new popular song; and after you’ve drunk it, you’ve got to choose someanimal or vegetable object from the things in front of us and recite a line from a well-know

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poem, or an old couplet, or a quotation from the classics—” (H 2, 54)

…: “Then you must drink a cup of wine, sing a new popular song, and recite either a line．．．．．．．．．．from an old poem or couplet, or a saying from the Four Books or the Five Classics connectedwith some object on the table.”

(Y 1, 411)

Example 2:

…:“...酒面要一句古文，一句旧诗，一句骨牌名，一句曲牌名，还要一句时宪书上的话，总共凑成一句话。酒底要关人事的果菜名。”

(酒令三首 第六十二回) (Cai, 311)

…:“Before drinking you must give a well-known quotation in prose, a well-knownquotation in verse, a dominoes threesome, a song-title, and the day’s forecast from an almanac,all five to hung together so that they make continuous sense. After drinking you must give thename of some food you see here on the table which can be used in more than one sense.”

(H 3, 197)

…:“Before drinking, the loser must quote one line from a classical essay, one from an oldpoem, one domino’s name, one name of a melody, and one line from the almanac. All thosetogether must make a sentence. The forfeit after drinking is to name some sweetmeat or dishand link it with human affairs.”

(Y 2, 357)

Example 3: 令官

M. C.

(H, all along)

薛蟠道：“令官都准了，你们闹什么？” (第二十八．．回)

“If the man in charge passes it,” blustered Hsuen Pan, “why should you lot kick up such a．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

fuss?” (Y 1, 414)

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(鸳鸯……笑道：)“酒令大如军令，不论尊卑，惟我是主(即“令官”)。违了我的话，是．要受罚的。” 十回)

“Drinking rules are as strict as martial law. Now that I’m in charge I’ll be no respecter of．．．．．．．．．．．persons—anybody who disobeyed me must pay a forfeit.”

探春道：“我吃一杯，我是令官……” ．．“I’m taking charge so I’ll drink a cup too,” said Tan-chun. ．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

(第六十二回)

(Y 2, 358) (Y 1, 596)

(第四

According to Cai’s postil, the cup of wine in the presence of one who is in a drinkinggame that one should drink as the game rule goes, is “门杯”; and the improvisationalwords, acts or performing in conformity to the game rule, before and after “门杯”, arecalled “酒面” and “酒底” respectively. By scrutinizing the translations of the Yangs andHawkes’, we find there is no literality or literal translation, as word-to-word translation.In stead, after mentioning “the wine in front of you” (门杯), Hawkes explains “酒面” and“酒底” as the things one should do before and after the coteau—a dividing point or acritical action—drinking “the wine in front of you”. Though the English readers have nosense of the image of the three important terms in traditional Chinese drinking games, inother words, Hawkes deserts the shapes of the cultural lacuna words, while has the TLreaders known well the connotations of the cultural lacuna words. The constantemployment of “before” and “after” by Hawkes informs well the TL readers the movesof a drinking game. The Yangs basically adopt the same method to render the three wordsin TL, only with a difference of employing words like “loser” and “forfeit” to remind theTL readers the gambling quality of a drinking game. Hawkes and the Yangs’ method hereis Paraphrase, Cultural explanation, or Contextual amplification. However, they aretotally different in dealing with “令官”. Hawkes renders it all along as “M.C.” by freetranslation, the capitalized acronym of “main controller”, whereas the Yangs’ translation

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is in transpositional discourse as the person “the man in charge”, “I’ m in charge” and“I’m taking charge”, etc. With a tint of emphasizing the important function of the powerdissembling a hierarch as well as the cultural information that a kind of the specificperson is a requisite character in a drinking game, Hawkes introduces cultural lacunaimage to the TL readers, this kind of translation strategy the author calls it Image-implanting. In the point, Hawkes has done a better job than the Yangs.

With regard to concrete drinking games, altogether there are mainly the followingseven names of drinkers’ wager name in definitude in Hong Lou Meng: 令 or “女儿”酒令 (Cai) (第二十八回), 骨牌副儿/牙牌令 (第四十回), 春喜上眉梢(第五十四回), 射覆 & 拇战 (第六十二回), 占花名儿/“花名签”酒令 (Cai) & 抢红 (第六十三回). Acontrastive enumeration of corresponding translations follows:

Example 4: (令/“女儿”酒令(Cai) 第二十八回)

宝玉笑道：“……我先喝一大海，发一新令……”．

“now just a minute,” said Bao-yu. “I’ve got a good new drinking-game for you. Let me first．．．．．．．．．．．．．．drink the M.C.’s starting-cup…”

(H 2, 54)

“Listen,” put in Pao-yu. “…Suppose I empty a goblet first and we play a new game ．．．．．of．．forfeit...” ．．．．．．．

(Y 1, 411)

Example 5: (骨牌副儿/牙牌令 第四十回)

(make four calls on three) dominoes (三宣) 牙牌令 /(call) threesomes with the dominoes (说)骨牌副儿(a set of) three dominoes

(H 2, 299) (Y 1, 596)

Example 6: 春喜上眉梢 (第五十四回)

Spring Joy on Every Brow (H 3, 37) Spring Lights Up the Eyebrows

(Y 2, 225)

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Example 7: 射覆 (第六十二回)

Cover-ups (H 3, 196) She-fu conundrums

(Y 2, 358)

Example 8: 拇战 (第六十二回)

guess-fingers the finger-guessing game/the finger-game

(H 3, 196)

(Y 2, 358)

Example 9: 占花名 (第六十三回)

Choosing the Flower (H 3, 222) the “Flower Game”

(Y 2, 378)

Example 10: 抢红 (……“拿骰子咱们抢红吧”……) (第六十三回)

Fours (…‘Get out the dice and let’s play Fours then’…) the dice game “Grabbing the Red”

(H 3, 222) (Y 2, 378)

The different features of manipulating the cultural lacuna words between the Yangsand Hawkes are more palpable in their translating the seven names of drinkers’ wagergame. On “骨牌(副)” and “拇战”, the translations are approximately the same. Theyboth choose “dominoes”, a word in substantial equivalence, to render “骨牌”, andexplain “拇战” as performance of guessing fingers, also with a minute difference ofemphasizing the game quality by the Yangs’ employing “Game” sometimes. Themethods of free translation and paraphrase find their way here again. Distinctive．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．differences present themselves in translating “射覆”, a complicated jeu de mots. Hawkestries to excavate the essential and substance of the operating process of the game by a VP,and the Yangs transliterate the cultural lacuna word plus a word of scope designation“conundrums” ((答案有双关意义的)谜语, 难题) to mark its complexity and difficulty.As far as a word which is both hard to be literally translated and explained in book-phrase is concerned, the mark of generic description is significant and to some extent

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necessary for the TL readers to perceive more easily that it is a name of a game; what’smore, the transliteration “She-fu” obtains the phonic image of the cultural lacuna word.Therefore it’s more comprehensible by the TL readers thus estranging from being inconfusion, and simultaneously it remains the TL readers’ yearning towards the SL culture.The Yangs’ translation is slightly better in this bout. The Yangs’ handling the concretecase of cultural lacuna here reduces to Transliteration plus a generic word in lay oftranslating method, and image-implanting in lay of translation strategy.

Similar elaboration would extend to the comparison of their dealing with “占花名”and “抢红”, with the Yangs’ translating methods transforming from transliteration to freetranslation and literal translation respectively. A clearer comparison of their differencesin translating methods is sketched in Table 1.

TABLE 1:

4Trans. HLTTransliterationTrans.YFTFTLTplus a generic wordparaphrase&FTFTLT5FT6LT7FT8paraphrase9FT10FT(N.B.: “LT” stands for “literal translation”, and “FT” stands for “free translation”.)

3.3 Allusions of cultural lacuna in the drinkers’ wager game

In communication with others, people usually embellish their speech or writing withreferences to characters or events from their history, which not only make the languagericher, but also make the communication more vivid and easier. Such references areallusions. According to the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (2002:433), allusions referto “the quoted ancient stories and words in poems and classical works”.

It’s typically the case that readers will encounter allusions in reading literary works,which are of great aesthetic value to those works. As was maintained by Iser, “only withthe text and the readers integrated can a literary work come into being” (本文与读者的结合才形成文学作品) (Zhu Liyuan, 1989:22). It reveals the inter-functioning

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relationship between the text and the readers during the process of reading activities.Literary works cannot do without the readers’ involvement, as the readers play anindispensable part in facilitating the completion of a literary work. According toReception Aesthetics, what the writer composes is only a text, which leaves capaciousroom and calls for the readers’ active participation in filling in the room. The room is animpetus attracting the readers’ attention and meanwhile stimulating their imagination tocomplete the text and thus finally constructing the literary works. Therefore, “room is apeculiar feature and merit of a text”. (Ibid) Allusions with its omission of some culturalbackground knowledge in the text can be reckoned as one type of the room constructedin the text, which provide a realm for readers’ imagination and participation. Whenreading texts with allusions, the readers will have to make full use of their imaginationand take active part in interpreting the texts by reading in from their memory the defaultcultural knowledge, during which the readers can derive some reading pleasure, as aresult. Whereas if the readers are provided with every respect in a text and left nothingincomplete, their imagination would be kept out of the realm, which will ineluctably leadto boredom felt by the readers who have all ready before them. Therefore, allusions cankeep the readers from feeling bored with the text.

Contrasting to the SL readers’ not feeling bored, the TL readers more or less feelpuzzled when they cover a corresponding translated version, as playing the same role offacilitating the completion of a literary work with SL allusions. Allusions of differentpeoples are distinctively different due to the variety of the development of history, whichis an important component of a nation’s culture. Chinese allusions are closely connectedwith Chinese culture, and reflect it to the great extent. To the readers in the receptorlanguage, who are short of relevant knowledge, Chinese allusions are not easy to beunderstood, and it’s usual to cause cultural lacunas in translation.

“Allusions require a high degree of biculturalisation of receivers in order to beunderstood across a cultural barrier.” (Ritva Leppihalme, 1997:7) Drinkers’ wager game

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in Hong Lou Meng, whose characteristics are of a distant origin and a long development,abounds with allusions full of relatively strong China’s national coloring. The Yangs andHawkes, as the media of cultural communication, adopt many translation methods andstrategies to convey the cultural messages in those allusions as much as possible.

(1) the proper-name allusions

Let’s first have a look at those proper-name allusions of certain character. Gladys(1989:83) has ever stated the trouble: “Sometimes it’s typically the case that a certaincharacter’s name is merely mentioned in a text, like Hong Niang. On referring the twoChinese characters, an immediate associative integration of a suit of story plots and therelationship between its protagonists, etc., will present themselves before Chinese people.Yet how can we render all those in English? Of course, we are able to turn to footnotes orexpatiate as possible as we can; however, the English version is hence always moreverbose than its Chinese counterpart, and the powerfulness of the original language isdiscounted as well.” (有时可能只提一个名字，比如“红娘”。对中国人来说，只要一提这二字，人们马上会联想起一整套故事情节及其中人物之间的关系等等。但是，我们怎样把这些翻成英语呢？当然，我们可以加注或尽量多做些解释；然而，英译文总是比原文累赘得多，也不及原文有力。) (trans. by author)

Example 11: (骨牌副儿/牙牌令 第四十回)

贾母道：“这鬼抱住钟馗腿。”．．

The devil shouts, “Zhong Kui, let me go!” ．．．．．．．．By his leg the ghost-catcher he’s caught. ．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

(H 2, 300) (Y 1, 596)

“钟馗” is an ancient Chinese legendry character, emblematized a talisman whoseduty is to catch ghosts as a full-time official. A professional ghost-catcher is cumberedby ghosts in reverse. The implication of Mrs. Jia’s lines well demonstrates her wits,eutrapelia and humor as sophisticated as she is. Hawkes’ tackling of only transliterating

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the name without any explanation may lead the majority of English readers in puzzle.The Yangs free-translate it as “the ghost-catcher”; English readers would have nodifficulty in comprehension, still with a pity of losing the national coloring and culturallyassociative image. Undoubtedly the concerted literary effect of the translation is weakerthan that of the original text. If an annotation or a paraphrase is annexed to the translationon the basis of literal translation, it may achieve better translation effect than the Yangsand Hawkes have done.

Example 12: (骨牌副儿/牙牌令 第四十回)

鸳鸯道：“当中‘二五’是杂七。“薛姨妈道：“织女牛郎会七夕。”．．．．Between them, two and five make seven.On Seventh Night the lovers meet in heaven.．．．．．．．．．In the middle “two and five” make seven.The Weaving Maid and Cowherd meet in Heaven.．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

．Names of constellations in Chinese astronomy. According to Chinese (1

．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

(H 2, 301)

folklore, the Weaving Maid and the Cowherd were lovers.)．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

(Y 1, 597)

“牛郎织女” are folkloric characters widely known in China, while unnecessarilyknown to the English readers. The Yangs adopt the method of literal translation plus anote to deal with the allusion of cultural lacuna, conveying both its cultural denotativeimage and original connotative information. Seemingly their translation leaves nothing tobe desired; but the information of “七夕” supposed to be in concurrence with “牛郎织女” according to the logic their translating herein conforms to, disappears. I am afraid I’dargue that the Yangs attend to one thing and lose another, a bitter too. Comparativelyspeaking, Hawkes has done a better job as though. “牛郎织女” assumed by Cao Xueqinin the original text there, is presented on the stage as distressful lovers parallel to the twoafterwards-married protagonists in the novel—Bao-yu (宝玉) and Bao-chai (宝钗), as a

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prophecy of their ill-fated marriage. Hawkes’ free translation does no harm to theEnglish readers’ understanding the literal sense of Xue’s lines, the insightful Englishreaders’ perceiving and detecting Cao Xueqin’s intention either.

Example 13: (骨牌副儿/牙牌令 第四十回)

鸳鸯道：“凑成‘二郎游五岳’。”．．薛姨妈道：“世人不及神仙乐。”

Together that gives:“The Second Prince plays in the Five Holy Hills.”．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．The immortals dwell far off from mortal ills.

(H 2, 301)

The whole: O’er the Five Peaks the young god wends his way.．．．．．．．．．．．

Immortal joys are barred to mortal clay.

(Y 1, 597)

If literal translation is dispensed on “二郎”, extra explanations or a footnote isunavoidable, nay, goes from the elaboration of Jade Lotus Lantern (《宝莲灯》).Therefore, the Yangs substitute it with “the young god” (年轻的神仙). No trail of “神仙”following on the heels of “二郎” can be traced in Hawkes’ version “The Second Prince”(二王子). In the case of the translators’ both abandoning the SL cultural image, which isinessential to the English readers’ both understanding the literal sense of game lines andperceiving Cao’s intention, the Yangs achieve better entanglement effect of adjacent up-and-down lines as there is in the original text. Hence the Yangs’ translation is more“faithful” here. By the way, the better-effect-achieved translators’ abandoning the SLcultural image in Example 12, 13 can be regarded as free translation, Cultural Deletionor Substitution in lay of translating method and in lay of translation strategy to culturallacuna, Image-abandoning.

(2) allusions of expressions from Chinese literary works

Literary masterpieces are generally renowned for their vivid description of various

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characters and for their panoramic presentation of the spirit and ethos of certain society.In both Chinese and English cultures exist abundant literary works that have been readand eulogized by people of many generations, and that have impressed peopleenormously with representational figures and stories created within. Consequently, thoseliterary figures and stories are often referred to in later literary texts. The case being thatthese figures and, stories are widely known to people of that language-culture, most oftenthan not, the specific information of them is processed as self-evident. For example, I’mno Hamlet. In this short sentence, “Hamlet” serves as a trigger that can remind theEnglish readers immediately of the story of Hamlet, the hero in the play Hamlet by thegreat British dramatist, William Shakespeare. Hamlet, being irresolute in taking revengeon his uncle, is led to his own death. Later on, “Hamlet” is labeled as the symbol andrepresentative of people hesitant or slow in taking actions.

In the following allusions of cultural lacuna in the drinkers’ wager game, theirlacuna information is also related to some expressions, which are excerpted from thetexts of Chinese literary works preceding it, representative and emblematical on name orana of dramatis personae.

Example 14: (骨牌副儿/牙牌令 第四十回)

鸳鸯道：“左边一个‘天’。”林黛玉道：“良辰美景奈何天。”．．．．．．．鸳鸯道：“中间‘锦屏’颜色俏。”林黛玉道：“纱窗也没有红娘报。”．．．．．．．．Sky on the left, the good fresh air,

Bright air and brilliant morn feed my despair.．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．A four and a six, the “Painted Screen”No Reddie at the window seen.．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

（…desperately dredging up a line this time from The Western Chamber to

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meet the emergency.） (H 2, 301)

The sign of “heaven” on the left.A fair season, a season bereft.1．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

1 ．

(A line from the Ming drama The Peony Pavilion.)．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

In the middle a “screen” finely wrought.

No maid a message to the gauze window has brought.2

（2 A line from the Yuan drama The Western Chamber.）

(Y 1, 598)

“Successful allusions of all kinds are economical and effective means for presentingan analogical situation.” (Hwang Mei-shu, 1995) In other words, the employment ofquoted character names, phrases or sentences can earn the effect of evoking an instantsituation that is symbolic for an emotion or a state of affairs. The under-markedquotations from The Peony Pavilion (《牡丹亭》) and The Western Chamber (《西厢记》)by Dai-yu fit in exactly with the case. It is depicted vivaciously in the two literary worksseveral female protagonists’ hankering for true love, whose thinking and doings areabsolutely taboo in feudal Chinese society. Likewise, the two books, which have beenascribed to pornography then, are supposed to estranging from young ladies of officialrank as taboo too. The secret anguish and undermeaning is in glint in Dai-yu’s gamelines that she wants to follow the example of Du Liniang (杜丽娘)—the femaleprotagonist bemoaning “良辰美景奈何天” in The Peony Pavilion, and Cui Yingying (崔莺莺)—the female protagonist in The Western Chamber giving the line of “纱窗也没有红娘报”, but labors lacking of a capable slave girl or intermediary like 红娘.

Words are the voice of the mind. As a rebel against feudalistic fetters, Dai-yu blurtsout the quotations, in which her personality and spirit of defiance and revolt are wellincarnated; and moreover, thus invite Bao-chai’s seemingly-well-meaning criticizing andbelecturing in the next chapter, which is an important one in Hong Lou Meng to

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demonstrate the two girls’ discrepancy in nature. Therefore, whether or not the Englishreaders can perceive the crucial point of the specific plot setting weightily influence theirunderstanding the later-coming chapters of the literary work. However, we cannot graspthose associations and implications following the Yangs’ and Hawkes’ translations.

On “良辰美景奈何天”, Hawkes’ unscrambling “奈何” as “feed my despair” by freetranslation is acceptable and workable to decode Dai-yu’s thoughts, still with a pity ofnot attaining the implied denotation of the two taboo books. So the English readers willnot be conscious of the reason why Bao-chai’ criticizes Dai-yu in posterior developingplots from the information Hawkes’ translations offer. The same translating method offree translation assumed as Hawkes, the Yangs translate not as appropriately to the pointas Hawkes, in both the literary meaning and the SL effect of Dai-yu’s lines paralleling toher covered grief, though rhyme-scheme is taken care of there. Also the note by theYangs only indicates the original name of the quoted literary works, no furtherexplanation follows, which cannot escape from the pity as Hawkes. On “纱窗也没有红娘报”, things go similarly as though, with a slight difference of Hawkes’ contextualamplification in an bracketed explaining sentence this time.

On the basis of the above comparative analysis, the author of the present thesis holdsthat in a similar situation, translators should have the TL readers known the impliedmeaning of expressions from allusions of cultural lacuna, through the translating methodof contextual amplification, cultural explanation or annotation, under the translationstrategy of image-implanting.

(3) allusions of expressions from classical works

Example 15: (射覆 第六十二回)

（湘云）便知宝琴覆的是“吾不如老圃”的“圃”字。．．．．．

She guessed at once that Bao-qin must be thinking of the passage in the thirteenth book of．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．the Analects where Confucius tells a person who wanted to study horticulture that he would．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．‘much better go to some old fellow who kept a market garden and learn about it from him.．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

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(H 3, 197)

Catching sight of the name Red Fragrance Farm over the door, she realized that Pao-chin

1．had in mind the line “I am not as good as the old gardener.”．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

1 ．( Analects.) ．From the ．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

(Y 2, 359)

Against cultural lacuna, we can find here that Hawkes is inclined to add theexplaining part into his translation text proper, namely, contextual amplification; whereasthe Yangs get used to the literal translation plus a footnote, as usual respectively. The twomethods each have its strong point and weak point as well.

In fact, Hawkes has made it clear in Preface as why he is partial to the method.(Hawkes, Preface to Vol. 2, The Story of the Stone, 17-18): “…the text abounds inpassages containing references to book, plays and poems which to the Western reader,lacking the literary background that Cao Xueqin was able to take for granted in hisChinese contemporaries, might often seem puzzling or incomprehensible. I make noapology for having occasionally amplified the text a little in order to make such passagesintelligible. The alternative would have been to explain them in footnotes; and thoughfootnotes are all very well in their place, reading a heavily annotated novel would seemto me rather like trying to play tennis in chains.” (原文满目摘引，自史书、戏剧或诗词等等不一而足。对西方读者来说，由于缺乏曹雪芹认定他的同时代人能够理解的文学背景，常常会感到困惑或不可理解。为解决这个问题，有时我会稍稍扩展原文，我认为这样很有必要。虽然我也可以用脚注来解释，而且这些脚注也很恰当，但在我看来，阅读带有大量注释的小说无异于戴着锁链打网球。) (translated bythe author of the present thesis) The inconvenience by footnotes in reading stands toreason. But if some readers are impatient to cherish an aborative reading tusk, it seemsoverleaping the notes does little harm to achieving a coherent course of reading.

(4) allusions from history

Every nation has its history, a rich collection of numerous events which happened in

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the past concerning the political, social or economic activities of a nation. The recordingof those historical events in language makes it possible for later generations to draw fromthem lessons that may come out to be beneficial in the future. Frequent reference to thosehistorical events by later generations gradually attaches extended meanings to them. As aresult, those historical events are often referred to in written texts when the need of usingtheir extended meanings calls for it, while their detailed stories are omitted, treated asself-evident in SL text, cultural lacuna in translation.

Example 16: (射覆 第六十二回)

宝琴笑道：“请君入瓮。”．．．．

‘You know what Lai Jun-chen said when he showed Zhou Xing the fiery furnace that Zhou．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．Xing himself had designed,’ said Bao-qin: ‘“Please step inside!”’ I think that’s what I should say．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．to you now. Why don’t you do the forfeit that you for Bao-yu?’．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．designed．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

(H 3, 200)Pao-chin quipped, “Please get into the jar, sir!” 1

．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

．(1 A quotation from Szuma Kuang’s Mirror of Governance, meaning that injury is ．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．

repaid in kind.) (Y 2, 361)．．．．．．．．．．．．．

“请君入瓮” originates from a historical story in the Tang Dynasty. During the reignof Wu Zetian (武则天), a merciless judge, named Zhou Xing (周兴), was suspect of hightreason and the deputy Lai Junchen (来俊臣) was ordered to investigate the case. Toobtain a confession from Zhou, Lai unctuously invited him to a party and asked himwhat’ the best way to extort confession from unwilling prisoners. Zhou suggested theplacing of a jar in hot coals and putting the prisoner in it. When this was done, Lai toldZhou, “Now it’s time for you to confess, please step into the jar. “请君入瓮” implies themeaning of trying yourself what you have devised to torture others. Here in the game, itis to describe to the behavior of Hsiang-yun (湘云) who has just been entitled to make

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Bao-yu pay forfeits before and after drinking, while very soon, Hsiang-yun loses thefinger-game and has to pay a forfeit according to her own rules. The translators stick totheir habits as usual. The Yangs employ the strategy of literal translation plus a note. Notto say the readers in the English version, even the Chinese reader may not recognize thisallusion if they only read the English. In the author’s opinion, we can use the approach ofliteral translation together with contextual amplification to convey it into: “It’s anallusion ‘please get into the jar, sir’, to have a taste of what you intended for others.” Thisway of translation not only retains the cultural image and flavor of the Chinese original,but also expresses explicitly the cultural connotation implied in the lines. Then thecultural lacuna caused by the historical allusion is much narrower in this translation thanin the former ones.

A clearer comparison of their differences in translation methods is sketched in Table2.

TABLE 2:

Trans.TransliterationHTrans.FTYLT plusfootnoteCulturaldeletion/substitutionFTFT11121314FT plusfootnoteLT plusfootnote15ContextualamplificationLT plusfootnote16ContextualamplificationLT plusfootnote3.4 The respective translating features

In this chapter, we have discussed the translation of cultural lacuna from twoperspectives: words of cultural lacuna in the drinkers’ wager game, allusions of culturallacuna in the drinkers’ wager game including the proper-name allusions, allusions ofexpressions from Chinese literary works, allusions of expressions from Classics, allusionsfrom history record. Due to the huge gap between Chinese and English in language andculture, and the vast scope of culture that Hong Lou Meng covers, it is really a tough taskto reproduce all that is in the source text. Drinkers’ wager game abounds in Chinese

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specific cultural elements and undoubtedly creates many aspects of cultural lacuna whichare far more than those we’ve discussed.

Mr. Yang Xianyi, his wife Gladys Yang and Hawkes are masters on translationbetween Chinese and English. In their unscrambling and translating the drinkers’ wagergame in Hong Lou Meng, they adopt various translation methods and strategies to fill inthese cultural lacunas. The Yang’s version is basically SL culture-oriented, i.e. culturalpreservation, and Hawkes’ version is mostly TL culture-oriented, i.e. culturalinterpretation. Yet in actual translation, it is impossible to employ one method or followone principle. Accordingly there is no version that is completely SL culture-oriented orTL culture-oriented. So we can come to a conclusion that all methods and strategies maybe justified in their own right if we take into consideration the differences in the purposeof translation, the type of texts, the SL text author’ intention and so on. It is hard andunnecessary to tell which method or strategy is absolutely the best, as they each haveadvantages and disadvantages. Therefore, they adopt more than one method and strategyto achieve a better translation effect and to fill in the cultural lacuna to the greatestextent.

To sum up the major translation methods of cultural lacuna employed by the Yangsand Hawkes are: (1) literal translation (2) free translation (3) contextual amplification /cultural explanation / paraphrase (4) annotation (5) cultural deletion/substitution (6)transliteration & transliteration plus a generic word (7) combination of the above.

As far as the major feasible translation strategies are concerned, there are: (1) image-preserving (2) image-implanting (3) image-changing (4) image-abandoning which willbe under a thorough discussion in the next part.

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4 Countermeasures to cultural lacuna

Since translation is not only an inter-lingual activity but an activity that inevitablyinvolves two cultures, the translator is permanently faced with the problem of how totreat the cultural aspects in the SL and of finding the most appropriate technique ofsuccessfully conveying these aspects in the TL. This stands out especially striking intranslation with cultural lacuna as it tends to be more knotty than any other culturalphenomenon in translation. This chapter is particularly allocated to discussing how totranslate cultural lacuna.

4.1 General translation principles

Before proceeding to discuss the specific translation of cultural lacuna, let’s firsthave an idea of general translation principles since any translation should be part of theoverall translation.

As one of the oldest human activity in history, translation has been drawing wideattention from people both home and abroad. For centuries, many people who areinterested in translation, including translators and translation theorists, have beenapproaching translation from different perspectives. One of the focuses they center on iswhat a good translation or adequate translation is, so various criteria and principles havebeen put forward from different points of view.

In the west, Tytler wrote the first significant book on translation in1790, namely,“Essay on the Principles of Translation”, stating that “a good translation is one in whichthe merit of the original work is so completely transferred into another language as to beas distinctly apprehended and as strongly felt by a native of the country to which thatlanguage belongs as it is by those who speak the language of the original work”.(Newmark b, 2001:4) He put up three principles of translation:

“1) The translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original

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work.

2) The style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of theoriginal.

3) The translation should have the ease of the original composition.” (Liu Chongde,2000: 22)

Following that were considerable essays, references and books on translation asother disciplines such as linguistics, information theory, anthropology, and semiotics, etc.flourished. China has seen a similar prosperous development of translation activity.Translation problems, which are still of the concern of translation scholars, werediscussed to a considerable degree as early as Tang Dynasty by Xuan Zang (玄奘) andmany other translators of Buddhist Scripture. In the late Qing Dynasty, Yan Fu (严复),the noted translator of western works, in his “Introductory Remarks” to his translation《天演论》, presented a systematic set of translation principles, the influence of whichcan still be felt at present. The trinity principles put forward by Yan consist of Xin (信,faithfulness), Da (达, expressiveness) and Ya (雅, elegance). Over the past more than ahundred years, heated argumentation centering round the trinity- principles has beencarried out and has proved to be very fruitful.

To synthesize the many translation principles ever put up both home and abroad, wemay conclude that the following principles are generally acknowledged. The first andforemost principle is that the information of the original text should be faithfully andaccurately conveyed in the TL text. To be specific, the translation should cause nomisunderstanding of the original information by those for whom the translation isintended. Secondly, the translator should see to it that his version is correct and smoothsemantically, syntactically and pragmatically. The translation should be easy to read andunderstand. Thirdly, the translation should be culturally appropriate, in other words, thetranslation can naturally enter into the norm of the TL culture. No cultural shock shouldbe caused in the TL readers.

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It goes without saying that in order to guarantee the success of the communication,the translation should be adequate enough to make what’s expressed in the SL text beproperly understood and smoothly accepted by the TL readers.

4.2Translation strategies to bridge cultural lacuna

Grounded on all the aforementioned principles of and approaches to translatingcultural factors, translating cultural lacuna is basically a process of transferring itscultural information of the original text correctly and acceptably into the target text.Besides, since cultural lacuna is a special phenomenon in translation with culturalpeculiarity involved, the translators have to face the problem of WHETHER or not putthe shape of cultural peculiarity into target text, and if yes, HOW to shape the cultural“peculiarity” for the purpose of achieving a better translation, which is the ultimatedestination the present thesis desires to arrive at.

In the translation of cultural lacuna, no matter what strategies one adopts, he’d betterask himself occasionally: “Have I transferred the images of the original properly?” forimages are the spirit of cultural peculiarity especially for cultural lacuna. In thecomparative analysis in 3.4, the word “image” finds its way into the comparing orcommenting on the Yangs’ and Hawkes’ version by the author of the present thesis manytimes. It has been used to refer to the identity of a prerequisite role in a drinking game asin analyzing “令官”, the pronunciation of a Chinese word as “she-fu” in analyzing “射覆”, the specific figures proper in Chinese folklore and myth as in analyzing “牛郎织女”and “二郎”, and the conglomeration of associative information offered by “良辰美景奈何天” and “纱窗也没有红娘报”, etc. Hereinabove and hereinafter, “image” is used torefer to any concrete element or ingredient of cultural lacuna, as incarnation of cultural．．．．．．．．peculiarity, standing as a comparison of the abstract feature of the word “lacuna”.．．．．．．．．

The course of translating cultural lacuna is more or less the same as the process offinding its acceptable equivalent in a TL and rendering it in the TL text. As the culturalcomponent is more peculiar and the cultural implied information is more important, the

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tusk would be more difficult. In many instances cultural lacuna can only be satisfactorilyrendered by a shaped lacuna image in a TL, although in the process much is lost.

Considerable attention has been paid to it so far as the translation strategies areconcerned. In translation practices, different methods of cultural lacuna translation areadopted considering the different situations under which the SL texts are put into the TLtexts. Following are the four possible translation strategies of cultural lacuna, listed inhierarchy of the degree to which the original cultural image is retained and the aestheticvalue of the original cultural lacuna is kept in the target texts.4.2.1 Image-preserving

To one’s surprise, there are some ways of expressions (though not too many) inChinese and English that are equivalent or close approximations both in terms of theimplied meaning and images. It’s a lucky case the strategy of image-preserving withmethod of word-for-word translation, i.e. literal translation is acceptable and intelligible.For example: 趁热打铁—strike while the iron is hot, 火上浇油—add fuel to the fire.谋事在人，成事在天。—Man proposes and God disposes. On this occasion the culturallacuna may be taken as “naught” cultural lacuna.4.2.2 Image-implanting

In marrow, the strategy of image-implanting is to fill in the lacunas stemming frombicultural difference in the TL with some SL images. If the cultural lacuna turns upfrequently, and it could not be found an relatively equivalent expression in impliedmeaning and wording in TL, it’s obligatory for the translator to implant the TL the SLimage, as has been discussed in analyzing “令官” and “射覆”. The reasons lie in thetranslator’s economical writing as against explaining the lacuna repeatedly in differentwording, and the readers’ achieving a coherent identifying and understanding; also it isadvantageous to retain the exoticism of the original text and the TL readers’ yearning forthe SL culture.

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Transliteration is the uppermost way to implement the image-implanting strategy intranslation practice. Workable and effective as it is, transliteration is prone to begetcultural estrangement, especially in two languages residing in differentiated languagefamilies. The eclectic settlement is to plus a classificatory or generic word as anadditional code to help the TL readers acquire a clearer idea. Besides “射覆—She-fuConundrum” we’ve discussed as a C-E translation example, many x-C translationexamples such as “jeep(English)—吉普车”, “Кремль (Russian)—克里姆林宫” and“Burgundy(French)—勃艮地葡萄酒” , etc.

There are two examples of “crocodile’s tears” and “armed to tears” as the reversedproof, for “鳄鱼的眼泪” and “武装到了牙齿” rendered by image-planting strategy havebeen widely accepted by the Chinese readers.4.2.3 Image-changing

When it is impossible for one to find an equivalent of cultural lacuna in TL, and alsounnecessary to implant the images of the original into the TL for the cultural lacuna onlyappears once or twice, but the correlated association of the cultural lacuna deeplyinfluences the TL readers’ understanding the implied information of the SL, the strategyof image-changing should be taken into one’s consideration. That is to say, the images inthe TL which have the same association as those in the SL and at the same time can beaccepted by and familiar to the TL readers, maybe taken into one’s consideration in suchoccasion. By cultural explanation, paraphrase, contextual amplification, or substitutionsometimes, despite the changed image of the original, the readers of the TL can obtainthe similar or close pragmatic and implied meaning from the employed images with theirimagination. In other words, the strategy of image-changing finds its strong suit inparting with tortuously long-winded explanation so that the TL readers’ attentions aredrawn to the semantic keystone and tenor of the SL text. For instance: “Every dog has itsday.”—“人人都有得意日。”. In the example, the image in the SL “dog” is changed into

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“人” in the TL. Though the image in the original is lost, the connotation and implicationof the original is preserved.4.2.4 Image-abandoning

In an instance, when the cultural lacuna is impossible to be changed, for no image inthe TL has an associative implication resembling to the cultural lacuna, a free translationmay be taken into consideration. This means just to convey the meaning and spirit of theoriginal without trying to reproduce its language forms or patterns in the target language.

4.3 Inevitable translation loss

A variety of different methods have been discussed in regard to translation withcultural lacuna. It’s necessary to examine these methods bearing in mind the inevitabilityof translation loss.

Among the many criteria used to evaluate the quality of translated texts, equivalencestands out exceptionally eye-catching by postulating that an optimal equivalent could befound in the TL for the original text. But the so-called optimal equivalence is only anideal, if not an illusion. Loss is inevitable in almost any translation. In the case oftranslation with cultural lacuna, culturally bounded translation loss is especially obviousdue to the missing cultural background knowledge in the TL readers. To examine thetranslation loss, we need take into consideration both the aesthetic value of the originaltext and the different response of the TL readers from that of the SL readers. Intranslation, the original cultural lacuna is, most often than not, not completely presentedbecause of the vast disparity between two cultures. The translated texts, as a result, arenot as aesthetically effective as the original. With regard to the TL readers, their responseto the translated texts would turn out to be not so intense as that of the SL readers to theoriginal texts. The SL readers, being the intended readers of the original texts, can easilyperceive cultural lacuna and automatically read in from their memory the relevantcultural knowledge to interpret the texts. The TL readers, however, often have to turn to

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the notes or examine the contexts to get relevant cultural information, as is in the cases ofliteral translation plus notes or with contextual explanations. In free translation then, theTL readers are even kept ignorant of the cultural background knowledge of the originaldefault. In neither case can they respond to the TL texts with the same ease andfulfillment as the SL readers. The reading pleasure they derive from the TL texts,compared with that of the SL readers, is much reduced.

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Conclusion

It is generally accepted that the ultimate goal of translation is to facilitatecommunication between people of different cultures. As language and culture areinextricably related to each other，to do translation—a kind of transculturallycommunicative activity is to reproduce in the TL the particular cultural messages carriedin the source language linguistically, stylistically and social-culturally to facilitate theexchange of culture, reinforce mutual understanding of people of different cultures; andtranslation, seemingly a mere inter-lingual activity, actually involves cultures in manyaspects. As has been shown in translation practices, cultural factors constitute one of thebiggest difficulties in translation; hence they deserve attention and examination.

Undoubtedly, we have discussed only a limited part of the possible ones, which arefar from exclusive and adequate. During the course of translation, we should makecareful study of the source and target language, as well as their cultures and try to conveythe denotation and cultural connotations of the source language to the receptor languageas much as possible. Furthermore, one culture can feed itself with new elements intranslation. In the process of cultural communication between Chinese and English, theyhave absorbed many alienable cultural elements from each other to enrich themselvesrespectively. Some previous cultural lacunas may mean nothing now. Therefore, thestrategies we apply to bridge cultural lacunas should be changed, according to the changeof the cultural environments and to the development of cultural communication. They arenot fixed and unchanged.

Fidelity to the SL requires that a translator should take as few liberties with theoriginal text as possible. He should not, generally speaking, add anything of his own toor subtract anything from the original. The ideal translation is to bring the SL and the TLinto such coincidence as the translator’s skill will allow. But translation is not merely a

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matter of rendering the words of a foreign language into another, it involves, in Nida’swords, “a seemingly roundabout process of analysis, transfer, and restructuring…it is themetamorphosis of the feeling, the life, the power, the spirit of the original”. Except insentences of simple meaning, absolute coincidence is hard to come by, for the work ofthe translator, like that of a painter, is towards an infinite goal. So the final translationmessage can never be exactly the same as the original because the readers have receivedan already processed version of the message. Likewise, cultural lacunas caused by the SLculture cannot be filled in completely; there are always some cultural elements lost in theprocess of translation.

Cultural study has moved from its very English beginning towards increasedinternationalization and has discovered the comparative dimension necessary for whatwe might call “intercultural analysis”. Surely there are some Chinese cultural elementsthat cannot be transferred into English. But it’s not true that cultural lacunas areunsurpassable and can’t be filled in. We should strive to seek for more useful andadequate strategies to solve the problems of cultural lacuna in Chinese-Englishtranslation. Along with the development of cultural exchange, which itself is greatlyfacilitated by translation activity, more cultural factors of one language will beintroduced to and accepted by the readers of another language. It is, therefore, verypromising that more cases of cultural lacuna of the SL will find their way directly intothe TL. The translator, nonetheless, must be aware of the present situations, andconsciously cultivates his capacity for different language-cultures so as to produce moresuccessful translation works and to pave the way for further cultural exchange.

Implications

The present thesis takes cultural lacuna as the focus of the discussion, looks into theissue from various perspectives. Theoretically, the research steps out of thecommonplace analyzing mode of cultural factors translation, i.e., participating the debateof foreignization and domestication, and has come up with some enlightening ideas.

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Practically, the thesis puts forward some strategies which may be effective to defeat thetroubles caused by cultural lacuna and takes words and allusions—from two perspectivesof cultural lacuna, as examples to give a detailed analysis to the application of thosetranslation strategies.

Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies

The job I have done in this paper, due to the restricted length, time and especially thelimited knowledge, can hardly be more than tentative. Problems and limitations areunavoidable. Some of them may have escaped the writer’s recognition, and some arerecognized yet unsolved, such as the exact and culminating classifications of culturallacunas, how and to which extent the different types of the cultural lacunas overlap.Though absolute cultural equivalence in translation is only an ideal, then in what degree ofequivalence are the cultural lacunas fully translated? Another problem needs further studyis presupposition and mistranslation. Although I have tried my best to avoid this kind ofmistakes by improving my cultural competence, they still exist in my translation. Theremust be some methods to follow which need more dedicated and systematic study forinterested scholars in the future.

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Acknowledgements

Upon the completion of the present thesis, my two-year postgraduate study isdrawing to the end. I’d like to avail myself to express my gratitude to all the people whohave helped me considerably with my study and my writing of this thesis by theirunselfish instructions and great kindness.

Heartfelt gratitude and sincere appreciation should first be extended to Professor XuMingwu, my supervisor, from whom I have learned valuable translation theory to layfoundations of this thesis. He has guided the whole process of my writing this thesis,while revising and polishing it, and has been encouraging and helping me all the time.Professor Xu’s sound advice and patient revisions contributed enormously to thecompletion of my thesis.

And I am much indebted to Professor Fan Weiwei, Professor Zhang Zaihong,Professor Qin Xiaoqin and Professor Liang Li, who have either instructed me in mygraduate study, moreover offered lots of insightful ideas pertaining to my thesis in thethesis proposal.

I’m also grateful to my fellow students, with whom I have shared two precious yearsand from whom I have received considerable encouragement. My special thanks are dueto my roommates, Li Chun, Xiong Xiaomin and Zhen Jing, whose frank criticism andharsh argumentation have proved to be a benediction on me.

Finally, my gratitude goes to my dear family members and my ami, who, thoughignorant of my research subject, have been providing me all the time with their mosttreasurable care and love in the world.

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Appendix I Published paper during study of MA

[1]

李婷.刍议英语中的汉语借用词 [J] .《湖南社会科学》.2005(5).312－313.

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Appendix II Drinkers’ Wager Game in Hong Lou Meng（theformer 80 chapters）

女儿酒令五首（第二十八回）

…:“…说完了饮门杯。酒面要唱一个新鲜时样曲子; 酒底要席上生风一样东西—或古诗、旧对、《四书》《五经》成语。”杨译（P411 Vol.I）：“Then you must drink a cup of wine, sing a new popular song, andrecite either a line from an old poem or couplet, or a saying from the Four Books or theFive Classics connected with some object on the table.”霍译（P54 Vol.2）：“…, you’re entitled to drink the wine in front of you. Only beforedrinking it, you’ve first got to sing some new popular song; and after you’ve drunk it,you’ve got to choose some animal or vegetable object from the things in front of us andrecite a line from a well-know poem, or an old couplet, or a quotation from the classics--”

其一

（贾宝玉）女儿悲，青春已大守空闺。女儿愁，悔叫夫婿觅封侯。女儿喜，对镜晨妆颜色美。女儿乐，秋千架上春衫薄。

杨译 P412 Vol. I

The girl’s sorrow: Youth is passing but she remains single.

The girl’s worry: Her husband leaves home to make his fortune.The girl’s joy: Her good looks in the mirror in the morning.The girl’s delight: Swinging in a light spring gown.霍译 P55 Vol.2

The girl’s upset: The years pass by, but no one’s claimed her yet.The girl looks glum: Her true-love’s gone to follow ambition’s drum.The girl feels blest: The mirror shows her looks are at her best.The girl’s content: Long summer days in pleasant pastimes spent.

酒面：滴不尽相思血泪抛红豆，开不完春柳春花满画楼，睡不稳纱窗风雨黄昏后，忘不了新愁与旧愁，咽不下玉粒金莼噎满喉；照不见菱花镜里形容瘦，展不开的眉头，捱不明的更漏。呀！恰便似遮不住的青山隐隐，流不断的绿水悠悠。杨译 P412 Vol. I

Like drops of blood fall endless tears of longing,

By painted pavilion grow willows and flowers untold;

Sleepless at night when wind and rain lash gauze windows,

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She cannot forget her sorrows new and old;Choking on rice like jade and wine like gold,She turns from her wan reflection in the glass;Nothing can smooth away her frown,

It seems that the long night will never pass;

Like the shadow of peaks, her grief is never gone;Like the green stream it flows for ever on.霍译 P55 Vol.2

Still weeping tears of blood about our separation:Little red love-beans of my desolation.

Still blooming flowers I see outside my window growing.Still awake in the dark I hear the wind a-blowing.Still oh still I can’t forget those old hopes and fears.

Still can’t swallow food and drink, ’cos I’m choked with rears.Mirror, mirror on the wall, tell me it’s not true:Do I look so thin and pale, do I look so blue?

Mirror, mirror, this long night how shall I get through? Oh—oh—oh?

Blue as the mist upon the distant mountains,Blue as the water in the ever-flowing fountains.酒底：雨打梨花深闭门杨译（P412 Vol.I）：Rain buffets the pear blossom and the door is closed.霍译（P56 Vol.2）：Rain whips the pear-tree, shut fast the door.其二

（冯紫英）女儿悲，儿女染病在垂危。女儿愁，大风吹倒梳妆楼。女儿喜，头胎养个双生子。女儿乐，私向花园掏蟋蟀。

杨译：P412 Vol.I

The girl’s sorrow: Her husband falls mortally ill.

The girl’s worry: Her boudoir in the tower is blown down.The girl’s joy: Twin sons at her first confinement.

The girl’s delight: Catching crickets on the sly in the garden.霍译：

The girl’s upset: Her husband’s ill and she’s in debt.

The girl looks glum: The gale has turned her room into a slum.The girl feels blest: She’s got twin babies at the breast.The girl’s content: Waiting a certain pleasurable event.

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酒面：你是个可人，你是个多情，你是个刁钻古怪鬼精灵，你是个神仙也不灵。我说的话儿你全不信，只叫你背地里去细打听，才知道我疼你不疼！杨译：P412 Vol.I

You can bill and you can coo,Be an imp of mischief too,But a fairy? No, not you,As my word you doubt.

Ask around and you’ll find outI love you, yes I do!霍译：P56 Vol.2

You’re so exciting,And so inviting;

You’re my Mary Contrary;You’re a crazy, mad thing.

You’re my goddess, but oh! you’re deaf to my praying:Why won’t you listen to what I am saying?

If you don’t believe me, make a small investigation:You’ll soon find out the true depth of my admiration.酒底：鸡鸣茅店月

杨译（P413 Vol. I）:：A cock crows at the moon by the rustic inn.霍译（P56 Vol.2）：From moonlit cot the cry of chanticleer.其三

（云儿）女儿悲，将来终身指靠谁？女儿愁，妈妈打骂何时休? 女儿喜，情郎不舍还家里。女儿乐，住了萧管弄弦索。

杨译：P413 Vol.I

The girl’s sorrow: Will she find a husband to support her?The girl’s worry: Will the bawd always beat and scold her?The girl’s joy: Her lover cannot bear to go home.

The girl’s delight: The pipes hushed, she plays a stringed instrument.霍译：P56 Vol.2

The girl’s upset: Not knowing how the future’s to be met-The girl looks glum: Nothing but blows and hard words from her-MumThe girl feels blest: Her young man’s rich and beautifully dressed.The girl’s content: She’s been performing in a big event.

酒面：豆蔻开花三月三，一个虫儿往里钻。钻了半日不得进去，爬到花儿上打秋千。肉儿小心肝，我不开了你怎么钻？

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杨译：P413 Vol.I

On the third of the third moon blooms the cardamom;Fain to creep into it an insect is come;Failing to enter it clings

To the petals and there s swings.Dear heart, if I don’t let you in,Your chances are thin!霍译：

A flower began to open in the month of May.Along came a honey-bee to sport and play.He pushed and he squeezed to get inside,But he couldn’t get in however hard he tried.So on the flower’s lip he just hung around,A- playing the see-saw up and down.Oh my honey-sweet,Oh my sweets of sin,If I don’t open up,How will you get in?酒底：逃之夭夭杨译（P413 Vol.I）：The peach trees are in blossom.霍译（P57 Vol.2）：So bonny blooms the peach-tree-o.

其四

（薛蟠）女儿悲，嫁了个男人是乌龟。女儿愁，绣房窜出个大马猴。女儿喜，洞房花烛朝慵起。 女儿乐，一根 往里戳。

杨译：P414 Vol.I

The girl’s sorrow: She married a queer.

The girl’s worry: A big gorilla springs out of her boudoir.The girl’s joy: Rising late after her wedding night.The girl’s delight: A good fuck.霍译：P57-58 Vol.2

The girl’s upset: She’s married to a marmoset.

The girl looks glum: His dad’s baboon with a big red bum.The girl feels blest: In bridal bower she takes her rest.The girl’s content: She’s got a big prick up her vent.酒面：一个蚊子哼哼哼，两个苍蝇嗡嗡嗡杨译：P414 Vol.I

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A mosquito buzzes hum-humTwo flies drone, buzz-buzz.霍译：P59 Vol.2

One little gnat went hum hum hum,Two little flies went bum bum bum.酒底（免）

其五

（蒋玉菡）女儿悲，丈夫一去不回归。女儿愁，无钱去打桂花油。女儿喜，灯花并头结双蕊。女儿乐，夫唱妇随真和合。

杨译：P415 Vol.I

The girl’s sorrow: Her husband leaves, never to return.The girl’s worry: She has no money to buy pomade.

The girl’s joy: The wick forms two heads like a double flower.

(1This was interpreted as a sign of a husband’s return.)The girl’s delight: Husband and wife in harmony.霍译：P59 Vol.2

The girl’s upset: Her man’s away, she feels he will forget.The girl looks glum: So short of cash she can’t afford a crumb.The girl feels blest: Her lampwick’s got a lucky crest.The girl’s content: She’s married to a perfect gent.

酒面：可喜你天生成百媚娇，恰便似活神仙离碧霄。度青春，年正小；配鸾凤，真也着。呀！看天河正高，听谯楼鼓敲，剔银灯同入鸳纬悄。杨译：P415 Vol. I

So many charms has Heaven given you,

You seem a goddess come down from the blue;And blooming youth, life’s springtide,Is just the time to mate the lovebirds true.The watch-tower drum is beating now,The Milky Way gleams high above;Make haste to trim the silver lamp

And draw the bridal curtains on our love.霍译：P60 Vol.2

A mischievous bundle of charm and love,Or an angel come down from the skies above?

Sweet sixteenAnd so very green,

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Yet eager to see all there is to be seen.

Aie aie aieThe galaxy’s highIn the root of the sky,And the drum from the towerSounds the midnight hour.

So trim the lamp, love and come with meInside the bed-curtains and you shall see!

酒底：花气袭人知昼暖杨译（P415 Vol. I）：When the fragrance of flowers assails men we know the day is warm.霍译（P60 Vol.2）：The flowers’ aroma breathes of hotter day.牙牌令/骨牌副（儿）（第四十回）

其一（贾母）

左边是张“天”。 头上有青天。当中是个五与六。 六桥梅花香彻骨。剩了一张六与幺。 一轮红日出云霄。凑成便是个“蓬头鬼”。 这鬼抱住钟馗腿。

杨译：P596 Vol. I

On the left is the “sky”. The sky is blue on high.In the centre’s a “five and six”, Six bridges with the scent of plum admix.The last piece is “six and one”. From fleecy clouds rises a round red sun.Together they make a “ghost distraught”. By his leg the ghost-catcher he’s caught.霍译：P27 Vol.2

On my left the bright blue sky. The lord looks down from heaven on high.Five and six together meet. By Six Bay Bridge the flowers smell sweet.Leaves six and ace upon the right. The red sun in the sky so bright.Altogether that makes:“A shock-headed The devil shouts, “Zhong kui, let me go!”devil with hair like tow”,

其二

（薛姨妈）

左边是个“大长五”。 梅花朵朵风前舞。右边是个“大五长”。 十月梅花岭上香。当中“二五”是杂七。 织女牛郎会七夕。凑成“二郎游五岳”。 世人不及神仙乐。

杨译：P597 Vol.I

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The one on the left is a “double five”. Plum blossom dances when soft winds

arrive.

A “double five” again here on the right. In the tenth month plum blossom scents

the height.

In the middle “two and five” make seven. The Weaving Maid and Cowherd meet

in Heaven.

（1Names of constellations in

Chinese astronomy. According to Chinese folklore, the Weaving

Maid and the Cowherd were lovers.）

The whole: O’er the Five Peaks the young Immortal joys are barred to mortal clay.god wends his way.霍译：P301 Vol.2

On my left all the fives I find. Plum-blossoms dancing in the wind.On my right all the fives again. Plum-blossoms in the tenth month’s

rain.

Between them, two and five make seven. On Seven Night the lovers meet in

heaven.

Together that gives:“The Second Prince The immortals dwell far off from mortalplays in the Five Holy Hills.” ills.其三

（史湘云）

左边“长幺”两点明。 双悬日月照乾坤。右边“长幺”两点明。 闲花落地听无声。中间还得“幺四”来。 日边红杏倚云栽。凑成“樱桃九点熟”。 御园却被鸟衔出。

杨译：P597 Vol.I

On the left “two aces combine”. The sun and moon on earth andheaven shine.On the right “double aces” are found. The idle flowers fall, noiseless, tothe ground.In the middle, “a four and a one”. Red apricot leans on clouds besidethe sun.

Together: The cherries ripen nine times in all. Birds in the Palace orchard makethem fall.霍译：P301 Vol.All the aces, one and one. Two lamps for earth, the moon and

sun.

On my right once more aces all. And flowers to earth in Silence fall.

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Between them, are again with four. Apricot trees make the sun’s

red-petalled floor.Together that makes nine ripe cherries. Winged thieves have stripped the

Emperor’s trees of berries.

其四

（薛宝钗）左边是“长三”。—— 双双燕子语梁间。右边是“三长”。—— 水荇牵风翠带长。

当中“三六”九点在。—— 三山半落青天外。凑成“铁锁练孤舟”。—— 处处风波处处愁。

杨译：P597 Vol.I

On the left is a “double three”. Pairs of swallows chirp merrily.Another “double three” upon the right. The wind-trailed weeds seem beltsof malachite.

In the middle, “three and six” make nine. Three hills across the azure sky

incline.

Together: A lonely boat moored by a chain. The wind and waves bring sorrow in

their train.

霍译：P301 Vol.2

A pair on the left then, three and three, Swallows in pairs round the old

roof-tree,A pair of threes upon the right, Green duckweed-trails on the water

bright.

A three and six between them lie. Three peaks upon the rim of sky,Together that gives: “The lone boat tied The waves on every hand and thewith an iron chain”, heart’s pain.

其五

（林黛玉）

左边一个“天”。—— 良辰美景奈何天。

中间“锦屏”颜色俏。——纱窗也没有红娘报。剩了“二六”八点齐。—— 双瞻玉座引朝仪。凑成“篮子”好采花。—— 仙杖香挑芍药花。

杨译：P598 Vol.I

The sign of “heaven” on the left. A fair season, a season bereft.1

（1 A line from the Ming drama The

Peony Pavilion.）

In the middle a “screen” finely wrought. No maid a message to the gauze

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window has brought.2

（2 A line from the Yuan drama The Western Chamber.）

That leaves only eight, by “two and six” Together they pay homage at the jadeshown. throne.

Combined: A basket in which to gather On her fairy wand she carries peonies.posies.

霍译：P301 Vol.2

Sky on the left, the good fresh air, Bright air and brilliant morn feed my(…putting down a double six.) despair.

A four and a six, the “Painted Screen” No Reddie at the window seen.

（…desperately dredging up a line this

time from The Western Chamber to meet the emergency.）A two and a six, four twos make eight. In twos walk backwards from the Hall

of State,（…on safer ground with a line from Du Fu.）

Together makes:“A basket for the flowers A basket of peonies slung from his stick.you pick,”

春喜上眉梢 (第五十四回)

杨译：P225, Vol.Ⅱ Spring Lights Up the Eyebrows霍译：P197 Vol.3 Spring Joy on Every Brow(原文只于王熙凤口中提及此令名)

酒令三首（第六十二回）

湘云:“...酒面要一句古文，一句旧诗，一句骨牌名，一句曲牌名，还要一句时宪书上的话，总共凑成一句话。酒底要关人事的果菜名。”（作为拇战令输家的惩罚）杨译：P357 Vol.Ⅱ

…:“Before drinking, the loser must quote one line from a classical essay, one from anold poem, one domino’s name, one name of a melody, and one line from the almanac. Allthose together must make a sentence. The forfeit after drinking is to name somesweetmeat or dish and link it with human affairs.”

霍译：P197 Vol.3

…:“Before drinking you must give a well-known quotation in prose, a well-knownquotation in verse, a dominoes threesome, a song-title, and the day’s forecast from analmanac, all five to hung together so that they make continuous sense. After drinking youmust give the name of some food you see here on the table which can be used in morethan one sense.”

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其一

（林黛玉）落霞与孤鹜齐飞，风急江天过雁哀，却是一只折足雁，叫得人九回肠。

—— 这是鸿雁来宾。榛子非关隔院砧，何来万户捣衣声？

杨译：P360 Vol.Ⅱ

Sunset clouds float with the lone wild duck,

The wild goose cries through the sky above wind-swept river;A wild goose with a broken leg,Its crying fills all hearts with sorrow.Such is the wild goose return.

Hazel-nuts having nothing to do with neighbourhood washing-blocks,

Why with them comes the sound of clothes beaten by ten thousand households?霍译：P199 Vol.3

…:‘One. “Scudding clouds race the startled mallard across the water”, said Dai-yu.‘Two. “A wild goose passes, lamenting, across the windswept sky.” Three. It must be“The wild goose with a broken wing”. Four. So sad a sound makes “The HeartTormented”. Five. “The cry of the wild goose is heard in the land.”’

‘This cob I take up from the tableCame from a tree, not from a stable.’

其二

（史湘云）奔腾而澎湃，江间波浪兼天涌，须要铁锁缆孤舟，既遇着一江风，

——不宜出行。这鸭头不是那丫头，头上那有桂花油？

杨译：P361 Vol.ⅡLeaping and rushing,

The river’s waves surge towards the sky;

An iron chain is needed to fasten the lonely boat;Because there is wind on the river.It is not expedient to make a journey.This duck’s head is not that serving-maid.2

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（2 “Duck’s head” and “serving-maid” are both yatou in Chinese.）How can its head be smeared with oil of osmanthus?霍译：P200 Vol.3

…:‘One. “A swift-rushing swirl and shock”. Two. “The sky rocks and heavens in theriver’s swelling waters.” Three. Better have “The lone boat tied with an iron chain.” Four.And since there is a “Storm on the River”. Five. “This will be a bad day for traveling.”’

‘This little duck can’t with those little ducks compare:

This one is quite bald, but they all have a fine head of hair.’

其三

（史湘云）泉香而酒冽；玉碗盛来琥珀光，直饮到梅梢月上，醉扶归，——却为宜会亲友。

……

杨译：P364 Vol.Ⅱ

Sweet the fountain, cold the wineGleaming like amber in a cup of jade;

The drinking lasts till the moon rises over the plum trees,Then the drunkards help each other back----An appropriate time to meet relatives and friends.…

霍译：P204 Vol.3

‘One. “The spring water being sweet, the wine is good.” Two. “Pour me its liquidamber in a jade cup.” Three. We’ll drink till we see “The moon above the plum-treebough”. Four. Then, as we’re “Rolling Home”. Five. It will be “A good time to meet afriend.”’

射覆四首（第六十二回）

其一圃

老—— 吾不如老圃。（薛宝琴覆)

药——（众人提示香菱射）杨译：P358-359 Vol.Ⅱ

覆（the word）—— Old

射（a classical allusion containing the word）—— the line “I am not as good as the old gardener”.1 （1 From the Anaclects.）底（the answer）—— peony霍译：P197 Vol.3

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覆——Market

射（to combine with ‘market’ to make a quotation）—— …the passage in the

thirteen book of the Anaclects where Confucious tells a person who wanted to study horticulture that he would ‘much better go to some old fellow who kept a market garden and learn about it from him’.

底（what the ‘market’ indicate (P198)）—— herb（the reply）

（…from a matching quotation from a line in one of Wang Wei’s poems

【】Sometimes I to my herb garden repair ）

其二鸡

人、窗—— 鸡人、鸡窗。（贾探春覆）

埘—— 鸡栖于埘。（薛宝钗射）

杨译：P359 Vol.Ⅱ

覆（the word）—— man,window

射（the allusions）—— “cock-window” and “cock-man”（…from the allusion

“Chickens come home to roost.” ）

底（the word）—— window霍译：P198 Vol.3

覆（clue）—— man, Shut

射（referring）—— ‘cock-man’ from Wang Wei’s

The red-capped cock-man has proclaimed the dawn

and ‘cock-shut’ from Luo Yin’s

At cock-shut still upon my book to pore.

底（countered）—— niche （countered with ‘niche’, basing herself on a line from

the sixty-third poem in the Poetry Classic: The cock roosts in his niche. ）其三

樽

瓢—— （李纨覆）（小说中没有明写出来）

绿—— （邢岫烟射）杨译：P360 Vol.Ⅱ

覆（the clue）—— gourd

底（…answered with）—— green霍译：P200 Vol.3

‘Gourd,’ said Li Wan.‘Green,’ said Xiu-yan.

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