The third (also the last of the series) 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 Dec. 11 in the SFL lecture hall. Gou Lin, president of Graduate Student Union of SFL, presided over the seminar, and the three keynote speakers were from the first-grade of MTI (Master of Translation and Interpreting) program—Chen Li, Dong Juanhong and Liu Chen. Dr. Wang Junqi, Deputy Party Secretary of SFL and Dean of the Department of International Chinese, Dr. Tang Jun and Dr. Ren Xiankai presented as guests of honor.
As a continuation of the last two seminars focused respectively on Hawkes’ version and B. S. Bonsall’s version, the third one presented the study on Henry Bencraft Joly’s version. With Chapter 3 as the sample, the three keynote speakers analyzed how Joly recreated in her translation the protagonists’ appearance and clothing.
Chen Li, in a humorous way, reported her careful comparison of the translation of Wang Xifeng’s appearance, jewelry and clothing among three English versions—Joly’s, Yang Xinayi’s and Hawkes’. The pictures, showing the evident differences between Joly’s translation and the actual object the original text refers to, facilitated the audience to achieve a better understanding: the translator’s cultural background, translation purpose and edition of the source language scripts will jointly decide on how the translator translates. In allusion to the uncertainty in translation raised by Chen Li, Dr. Ren emphasized the importance of information enquiry and verification in academic research.
Dong Juanhong’s presentation consists of three aspects: a brief introduction to Joly and her translation, translation of persons’ names, different images of Lin Daiyu in the Eyes of Jia Baoyu, of Wang Xifeng and of the others. Comparing Joly’s version with Yang Xianyi’s and Hawkes’, she commented on their respective merits and demerits. In her opinion, Hawkes’s version was accurate, smooth and expressive; Yang’s was simple and concise in diction; Joly, preferring literal translation to ensure faithfulness to the form of the original text, was more like translating a textbook rather than a novel. Dr. Wang spoke highly of Dong Juanhong’s academic attitude, and gave enlightening advice on how to do academic researches.
In her study of the translation of Jia Baoyu’s appearance and clothing, Liu Chen summarized the similarities and differences between Joly’s and Hawkes’ versions. She also supported her assertions with reliable references and relevant pictures, which was positively appraised by Dr. Tang and Dr. Ren. According to Dr. Tang, it was far from enough to rely solely on Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary or Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Frequent and effective access to libraries or academic websites such as CNKI.com was greatly encouraged, by which we could find out the origin, cultural connotation, stylistic feature and emotional element of words.
At the end of this seminar, Gou Lin highly appreciated the three speakers for their contribution and thanked teachers and students for their presence. Dr. Tang wrapped up the 3-reading-seminar event, expressing his expectations for the graduate students of SFL to participate more actively in redological studies next semester.