The second reading seminar of A Dream of Red Mansions entitled as “A Bite of the Classic Gives a ‘Red Dream’”, was held by Graduate Student Union of School of Foreign Languages (SFL) at 2:00 p.m. on Nov. 21 in the SFL lecture hall. Zeng Xiaoyu, a first year graduate student from the Department of English Language and Literature, presided over the seminar, in which there were three keynote speakers all from the first year grade: Zhao Jiawei, Xu Yiwen and Xue Aoshuang. Dr. Wang Pengfei, vice dean of SFL, Dr. Tang Jun and Dr. Ren Xiankai of SFL presented at the seminar as guests of honor. The audience consisted of some 2014 grade graduates.
This present seminar, the second of the reading seminar series, was intended to show the significance of comparative study on different translated versions of a same original work. The three keynote speakers, based on Chapter 3 of B. S. Bonsall’s English version, shared with the audience their findings on the translation of the description of how Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu and Wang Xifeng dressed.
Zhao Jiawei, with a focus on the variety of colors of Jia Baoyu’s clothing, studied the translation of colors in different translated versions. She found that color is an element of rich cultural associations, which results in different translations of a same color produced by translators from different cultural background, e.g. from a Western country and China respectively. Dr. Ren Xiankai concluded that the criterion of accuracy is of the most importance when it comes to the translation of nouns, e.g. nouns for clothing. He also suggested that a reliable picture relevant to a specific noun term should help guarantee the accuracy of translation.
Xu Yiwen discussed the translation of how Wang Xifeng made her appearance by comparing Bonsall’s, Yang Xianyi’s and Hawkes’ versions. She illustrated in detail both the merits and the demerits of each version. Dr. Wang Pengfei spoke highly of Xu’s academic attitude. He also encouraged the student audience to take seriously the cultural background in Chinese literature works and further look into the cultural causes for different translated versions.
Xue Aoshuang, when analyzing the translation of Lin Daiyu’s different images in the eyes of Baoyu and of the other people, did a comparative analysis of the three translated versions in order to summarize the features of each version and the causes underlying the features. In response to her presentation, Dr. Tang Jun mentioned that the features of translation are closely related to the translator’s identity and life experience. Take Bonsall as an example. Being influenced by the principle of Bible translation, i.e. accuracy is the first policy, he would naturally take word-for-word translation.
In his conclusion at the end of this seminar, Dr. Tang Jun highly praised the three speakers of their contribution. He also put emphasis on comparative study in translation research as well as in literature study. His encouragement of the postgraduates’ more active participation in the academic event concluded the second seminar.
