Domesticating or foreignizing translations of titles and honorifics in hong lou meng

Domesticating or Foreignizing?
Translations of Titles and Honorifics in Hong Lou Meng

LIU ZEQUAN

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

2006


Domesticating or Foreignizing?
Translations of Titles and Honorifics in Hong Lou Meng

LIU ZEQUAN
(B.A. (HTU); Postgraduate Dip. (NTU); M.A. (HUST, NUS)

A THESIS SUBMITTED
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

DEPARTMENT OF
ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Deep in my heart, I know crystal clear that it is centuries too late to acknowledge,
only at this concluding stage of my long and toiling years at the National University of
Singapore (NUS), my sincere gratitude to the kind and beloved people who have
encouraged and supported me through these painful but gainful years. Nevertheless, it

is better later than never to express my heartfelt appreciations, especially in an era
when words seem to speak louder than action.
To be academically correct, the very first few people to whom I have been
unpayably indebted are the faculty at NUS and they are Prof. Ho Chee Lick, Dr. Kay
O’Halloran, Dr. James St André, Prof Bao Zhiming, Dr. Edward McDonald, Prof
Desmond Allison, etc. Prof. Ho and Dr. O’Halloran (whom we intimately addressed as
Dr. Kay) and Dr. St André were on the academic committee of my dissertation. As the
head of the committee, Prof. Ho has been dutifully patient and enlightening to my
research. He trained me to query into every academic issue in detail and with
determination. When he kindly took me on as his supervisee due to the unexpected
leave of his predecessor Dr. McDonald, I had already been one year on to the road to
my doctoral research in the field of Chinese and English advertisements comparison
with both systemic and corpus linguistics as tools. Seeing that my former research
topic would possibly end me in no where, he considerately advised me to change
either himself or myself. With reluctance and agony I turned to the present topic, and
this is where I am standing now.
Dr. Kay has always been a reliable teacher and friend for both encouragement and
enlightenment. She led me on to the road to (Australian) functional grammar during
my second Master of Arts study in English Studies in NUS, with which I completed
my second MA dissertation under the supervision of Dr. McDonald. She not only

iii


helped in referring me to both the University of Sydney and the City University of
Hong Kong, securing me admission to both institutions with Studentship/Scholarship
(both of which I turned down, primarily but not exclusively because of the unique
bi-lingual environment Singapore as a country offers). She also remained always
ready to my help, either during my stay in or absence from Singapore.
Dr. St André proved a resourceful guide, in both linguistic and academic terms.

Academically, Dr. St André is favourably positioned as a lecturer of Chinese-English
translation in the Department of Chinese Studies. Linguistically, Dr. St André is
French by origin, American by nationality, and Chinese by speciality. He read and
critiqued my dissertation, dined and discussed with me over lunch.
While I mentioned Dr. McDonald in passing above, he deserves some more words.
I did not choose him as both my MA and Ph.D. supervisor because he is easily
associated with the American junk food brand (which was conveniently conjured up in
the mind of many of my friends and colleagues). I followed the Australian because I
thought he has much of what I assumed I needed for my systemic functional analysis
of my bank of Singapore Chinese and English beauty advertisements, namely his
functional perspective of the Chinese language as a pupil of the founder of functional
grammar, M.A.K. Halliday and his better half, Prof. Hasan.
As far as Profs Bao and Allison are concerned, they came to my rescue whenever
the need arose. They both helped generously when I approached to them for a letter of
reference to the University of Sydney and City University of Hong Kong; they
listened to me with sympathy and analysed my situation in and out when I went to
them with a disheartened frame of mind at the turn of my Ph.D. research. Prof. Bao, in
particular, felt for me in our mother tongue, in his capacity not only as coordinator of
postgraduate students in the Department of English Language and Literature, but also
as a fellow country man.
The second group of people who are always on my heart’s list of gratitude are my

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friends, Prof. Zhang Yenming (NTU), Prof. Goh Yeng-Seng (NTU), Dr. Zhu Shenfa,
Dr. Hong Huaqing (NTU), Dr. Chen Youping (Shanghia Jiaotong), D.r Yang Ruiying
(Xi’an Jiaotong), Dr. He Jisheng (NUS), Dr. Gong Wengao (NUS), etc. I would like to
thank these nice guys whom I had the pleasure to know and befriend, and who gave
me in an unselfish manner the feeling of being at home while at work.

I am also grateful for the National University of Singapore which has so
generously financed me through both my second master degree and my doctoral
degree studies with a full NUS Research Scholarship, which has contributed to putting
me in financial ease for full-time study in the true sense of the word. I also feel a deep
sense of gratitude for the good staff in NUS’s English Department, the Faculty of Arts
and Social Sciences, and Mrs. Goh Bee Hwa in the Registrar’s Office. Their
consideration, efficiency, help and sense of responsibility have made a deep
impression on me. Of course, I thank Singapore, a fine, friendly, multi-ethnic,
multi-lingual and multi-cultural city nation which facilitated my study and stay but
imposed no obligation to stay and serve.
I am very grateful for my wife and my son. The chain of my gratitude would be
incomplete if I should forget to thank them. For my wife, it is her quiet support and
traditional contribution during my absence and studies abroad. For my son, it is his
silent missing and my inaccessibility as a father.
To this day, I confess that doing a Ph.D. is a sacred undertaking and this is one of
the best, and the most important as well, decisions of my life. Additional energy,
vitality and dedication for research were required of me. I tried to acquire the degree,
gain some kind of expertise, and publish something. However, I lost quite a lot, some
of which is the dearest to my life and can only be regretted for life! Anyhow, I thank
you all for having shared many experiences and thoughts with me throughout the last
years.
To this day, I confess that a journey is easier chosen than completed, that a

v


journey is easier to travel when travelled together, that interdependence is certainly
more valuable than independence. This thesis is the result of six years of work
whereby I have been fortunately accompanied and supported by many. It is thus a
pleasant aspect that I have now the opportunity to express my gratitude for all of them,

albeit in whatever little way.
Because you, only you, know what I have been through, and, thus, how I have
endeavoured. To borrow from Hong Lou Meng, or to talk business once again:
满纸荒唐言，一把辛酸泪！
都云作者痴，谁解其中味？

For which Hawkes’s translation can be supplied as sort of an interpretation:
Pages full of idle word
Penned with hot and bitter tears:
All men call the author fool;
None his secret message hears.

Liu Zequan
6 June, 2006

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………i
Table of contents ………………………………………………...………….………..v
Summary……………………………………………………………….…………….ix
List of tables and figures…………………………….……………………………..xi
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION…………….……………………………………...1
1.0 Overview………………………………………………………………………….1
1.1 Two Theoretical Premises……….……………..………………………………….2
1.1.1 Culture, language and translation………………………………………………2
1.1.2 Translation as choices……………………...………..………………………….7
1.2 The research……………………………………………….……………………10

1.2.1 Focus of the study…………………………………………………………….10
1.2.1.1 Social stratification……………….………………..…………………………10
1.2.1.2 Dimension of self-denigration……………………………………………….12
1.2.2 Adopting Venuti: a rationale ………………………………………………….13
1.2.3 Objectives of the study………………………………………………………...14
1.2.4 Justification of the study……………………………………………………….15
1.2.5 Hypotheses and questions of the study…..……………………………………17
1.3 Hong Lou Meng………………………………………………………………….18
1.3.1 The story…………………………………………………………………….…18
1.3.2 English translations………………………………….…………………………19
1.3.2 General introduction…………………………………………………………...19
1.3.2.2 Abridged versions………………….................................................................20
1.3.2.3 Complete translations………………………………………………………..23
1.3.2.3.1 Joly’s translation…………………………………………………………...24
1.3.2.3.2 Yangs’ translation……………………….…………………………………..25
1.3.2.3.3 Hawkes’s translation……………………………………………………….26
1.4 Implications of the study………………………………………………………...27
1.5 Structure of the paper…………………………………………………………….30
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………..34
2.0 Overview………………………………………………………………………...34
2.1 Translation Strategies…………………………………………………………….35
2.1.1 Linguistic dichotomies………………………………………………………...36
2.1.1.1 Literal and free translation……………………………………………………37
2.1.1.2 Formal and dynamic equivalence……………………………………………38

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2.1.1.3 Formal correspondence and textual equivalence…………………………….41
2.1.1.4 Semantic and communicative translation……………………………………42

2.1.2 Cultural dichotomies…………………………………………………………...43
2.1.2.1 Alienating and naturalizing………………………………………………….44
2.1.2.2 Foreignizing and domesticating……………………………………………....45
2.1.3 Translation strategies: Conclusion……………………………………………..48
2.2 Studies of English HLM………………………………………………………….50
2.2.1 Lin’s studies………………...…………………………………………………..50
2.2.2 Hong’s studies…………………………………………………………………..53
2.2.3 Liu and Gu’s study….……….………………………………………………54
2.2.4 He’s study…….……………………………………………………………….55
2.2.5 Translation studies of HLM: Conclusion………………………………………56
2.3 Politeness and Terms of Address……………………………………………….59
2.3.1 Theories of politeness………………………………………………………….60
2.3.1.1 Brown and Levinson…………………………………………………………60
2.3.1.2 Leech……………………………………………………………………...…62
2.3.1.3 Cross-cultural studies of politeness………………………………………….62
2.3.1.4 Gu’s Maxims of Chinese politeness…………………………………………64
2.3.2 Studies of address terms ………………………………………………………66
2.3.2.1 Universal perspective of address terms…………………………………….67
2.3.2.2 Cross-cultural studies of address terms………………………………………68
2.3.2.2.1 Wierzbicka’s semantics of titles……………………………………………69
2.3.2.2.2 Sun’s study of address terms in HLM….………………………………….72
2.3.2.2.3 Gu’s Maxims of Address and Self-denigration…………………………….75
2.4 Framework Construction……………………………………………………..…..79
2.4.1 Gu’s maxims………………………………………………………………..…..79
2.4.2 Sun’s principles………..…………………………………………………..…..81
2.5 Methodology…………..……………………………………………………..…..82
2.5.1 Marking systems…………………………………………………………...…..82
2.5.1.1 Marking ST titles………………………………………………………...…..82
2.5.1.2 Marking ST honorifics…………………………………………………...…..83
2.5.1.3 Marking of English renditions……………………………………….…..…..86

2.6 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….88
CHAPTER 3 TITLES (I)……………………………………….…….……………90
3.0 Overview……………………………………………………………………...…90
3.1 太太………………………...………………………………………..……………93
3.1.1 Origin and use of 太太…………………………………….……………………93
3.1.2 Renditions of 太太 …………………………………………………………….96
3.1.2.1 Hawkes’s 太太…….…………………….……………………………..…..…98
3.1.2.2 Yangs’ 太太…….……...….……………………………………………...…102
3.1.2.3 Joly’s 太太 ……………………………………………………………….....109
3.1.2.4 McHugh and Wang’s 太太….………………………………….……………111
3.1.2.5 Renditions of 太太: conclusion......………………………………………….114

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3.2 老太太……………………………………...…………………...…………………115
3.2.1 Origin and use ………..……………………………………………………...115
3.2.2 Renditions of 老太太………...………………...………………………………117
3.2.2.1 Hawkes’s 老太太…………...………………………………………………..117
3.2.2.2 Yangs’老太太………………………………………………………………...122
3.2.2.3 Joly’s 老太太………….…………………………………………..………….123
3.2.2.4 McHugh and Wang’s 老太太……………………………...………..………..124
3.2.2.5 Renditions of 老太太: conclusion…………………..………………….……125
3.3 奶奶 and 姑娘 …………………………………………………………………..126
3.3.1 奶奶 …………………………………………………………………………..127
3.3.1.1 Hawkes’ 奶奶 ……………………………………………………………...130
3.3.1.2 Yangs and Joly’s 奶奶……….…..………………………………………….133
3.3.1.3 McHugh and Wang’s 奶奶 ……………………………………………..…..135
3.3.1.4 Renditions of 奶奶: conclusion…….………………………………….…….136
3.3.2 姑娘…………………………………………………………………………...137

3.4 Conclusion……………………………………………………………….……141
CHAPTER 4 TITLES (II) .………………………………………….…………..146
4.0 Overview ….……………………………..……………………….…………....146
4.1 太爷 ……………………………………………………………………………148
4.1.1 Origin and use of 太爷………………………………………………………..148
4.1.2 Renditions of 太爷……………………………………………………………153
4.1.3 Renditions of 太爷: conclusion….…………………………………………….163
4.2 老爷 ………………………………………………………………………...…..163
4.2.1 Origin and use of 老爷………………………………………………………..163
4.2.2 Renditions of 老爷…………………………………………………………....166
4.2.3 Renditions of 老爷: conclusion………………….…..……………………...…172
4.3 爷 ……………………………………………………………………………....172
4.3.1 Origin and use of 爷……………………………………………………….....172
4.3.2 Renditions of 爷……………………………………………………………...174
4.3.3 Renditions of 爷: conclusion….……………………………………………...178
4.4 大爷………………………………………………………………….………….179
4.4.1 Origin and use of 大爷………………………………………………………..179
4.4.2 Renditions of 大爷…… ………………………………………………………..181
4.4.3 Renditions of 大爷: conclusion…..……………………………………………191
4.5 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...192
CHAPTER 5 HONORIFIC TERMS………...………..…………………………195
5.0 Overview……………………………………………………………………….195
5.1 Self-other Honorifics………..…….…………………………………………….197
5.1.1 兄 and 弟............................................................................................................198
5.1.1.1 Origin and use of 兄 and 弟……………………………………….………..198
5.1.1.2 Renditions of 兄 and 弟.…..………………………………………….…….200
5.1.1.2.1 Hawkes’s 兄 and 弟…………...…………………………………..………..201

ix

5.1.1.2.2 Yangs’s 兄 and 弟 ………..……..…………………………………………207
5.1.1.2.3 Joly’s 兄 and 弟……………….………....…………………………..……..209
5.1.1.2.4 McHugh and Wang’s 兄 and 弟 ………….………………………………213
5.1.1.2.5 兄 and 弟 : conclusion…………..……………………...…………...215
5.1.2 先生, 晚生 and 在下…….………………………………………………………218
5.1.2.1 Origin and use of 先生, 晚生 and 在下………………………………………..218
5.1.2.2 Renditions of 先生, 晚生 and 在下……………………………………….……220
5.1.2.2.1 Hawkes’s 先生, 晚生 and 在下…………….………………………………...222
5.1.2.2.2 Yangs’ 先生, 晚生 and 在下……...…………….…………………………....223
5.1.2.2.3 Joly’s 先生, 晚生 and 在下…………………………………………………..225
5.1.2.2.4 McHugh and Wang’s 先生, 晚生 and 在下…………………………………228
5.1.2.2.5 先生, 晚生 and 在下: conclusion…..………………………………………230
5.2 Honorifics of Self/Other Extension……..……………………………………...231
5.2.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………….231
5.2.2 Self/other’s wife………………………………….……….……………….…233
5.2.3 Self/other’s parents and relatives…………………………….………………238
5.2.3.1 Self/other’s (grand-)parents……………..………………………….………238
5.2.3.2 Siblings of self/other’s wife ………………………………………………..243
5.2.4 Things on self/other’s side…..………………………………………………..249
5.2.5 Self’s offsprings…………………………………………………………...….254
5.3 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..….257
CHAPTER 6 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS…………..…………………….260
6.0 Overview…………………………………………………….…………………260
6.1 Findings……………………………………………………………………….264
6.1.1 Orientations of the five translations.………………………………………...265
6.1.2 Consistency of the five translations……………………………………..…..265
6.1.3 Cultural values trans-omitted………………………………………...………266
6.2 Implications of the study………………………………………………………..268
6.2.1 Theoretical implications………………………………………………………268

6.2.1.1 Venuti’s dichotomy ……………………………..……………………….….268
6.2.1.2 Cultural approach to Translation Studies……….………….………………270
6.2.1.3 Studies of Hong Lou Meng……………………………….………………..272
6.2.2 Practical implications……………………….………………………………..273
6.2.2.1 Readers’ response to English HLM………………………...………………273
6.2.2.2 The success of a translation……………………………………..…….…..276
6.2.2.3 The relationship between a translation and its strategy……………………280
6.2.2.4 Culture “trans-(re)lated”…….………….…………………………………..281
6.2.3 Venuti’s dichotomy: a final word ……..…………….……………………….284
6.3 Limitations and future research………………………………………..………..287
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………….290

x


Summary

The primary objective of the present study is to critically evaluate Venuti’s
(1995) (in)famous dichotomy of translations into domesticating and foreignizing ones,
with special reference to the strategies which are used to deal with culture-specific
items. To be specific, it is designed to see (1) whether Venuti’s dichotomy can be
effectively employed to categorise the five English versions of the eighteenth century
Chinese classic Hong Lou Meng or A Dream of The Red Chamber which have been
produced over one century of time from the 1890s to the 1980s, and (2) how aspects
of translation can be analysed to determine what strategy is used for its production.
The study adopts as database two common types of Chinese terms of
address/reference and their respective but different English renderings in the five
translations: (a) eight titles which are used by social non-equals to address/refer to the
Jia masters, and (b) thirty-five other-elevating and self-depreciating honorifics that are
employed between social equals. Both types of data are taken from the first twelve

chapters of the million-word, 120-chapter novel. The rationale behind the adoption of
address terms as research foci is the integrative perspective of language and culture
which views translating as translating culture and translations as choices.
A review of the literature in Translation Studies reveals that since times of
antiquity, translation strategies have been simplistically polarised in black-and-white
characterizations,

such

as

free-literal,

communicative-semantic,

naturalising-

alienating, etc., so much so that there seems no middle way open for translators.
Besides, previous studies of the English translations of Hong Lou Meng, though few
and far between, mostly conclude by adopting these dichotomies as matter-of-fact
labels. On the other hand, while the literature on Politeness Studies shows that
although politeness behaviour concerns human communicative behaviour in general,
it varies from culture to culture. It follows that, the use terms of address, which
xi


functions as the most conspicuous realizations of linguistic politeness in a culture, is
governed with the social norms of address behaviour of the culture. As such, an
investigation of the renditions of address terms as “cultural key words” should enable
not only a glimpse of the cultural values underlying these choices, significantly, it

should also provide some insight into the strategy which a translator adopts.
The study adopts primarily Gu’s (1990) Address and Self-denigration Maxims
of Chinese titles as frameworks. Specifically, Gu’s two maxims is used to capture the
pragmatic factors, or “cultural values”, that govern the choice of a title and/or
honorific in the ST and then to check the (dis)appearance of the same values in the
choices which the five translators make. Based on the comparison of the values
between the source text (ST) and the target text (TT) underlying the choice of an
address term, the strategy which is used for the rendition is proposed. Basically, the
more a rendition represents the cultural values of its ST counterpart, the more it is
foreignized, and vice versa.
Significantly, the study, apart from overruling most of the conclusions which
previous studies of the English Hong Lou Men have drawn, disillusions the
applicability of Venuti’s dualizing dichotomies – and all the other dichotomies, for
that matter – to characterize translations beyond doubt. This is because, of the five
English translations of Hong Lou Meng, only Hawkes’s work can be labelled as a
domesticated production, and Wang’s as a foereignized one, in the true sense of the
word. All the other three, however, fail to fall into either category, since their
translators do not adhere to a single strategy in a systematic manner. As such, it is
proposed that a continuum along the lines of domesticating-foreignizing be used to
capture the extent to which a translation is oriented. The study also finds that, despite
the highest degree of domesticating, Hawkes’s version is viewed by the majority
internet readers as the most popular translation. And this finding undoubtedly throws a
wet blanket over Venuti’s “call” for foreignizing in translation.

xii


LIST OF TABLES
Table 1.1 Previous studies of the translations of HLM……………….…………….28
Table 2.1 Sun’s principles of address used in HLM………..…………………….…73

Table 3.1 Titles for the Jias in the corpus…………………………….………………92
Table 3.2 Renditions of minor titles for the Jias……..……………………………...93
Table 3.3 Use of 太太 in the corpus…………..………………………….…………..95
Table 3.4 Renditions of 太太 in Hawkes, Yangs and Joly...……..…………….…….101
Table 3.5 Renditions of 老太太 in Hawkes, Yangs and Joly...……..…..……….….119
Table 3.6 Use of 奶奶 in the corpus………….….………………………...………..129
Table 3.7 Renditions of 奶奶 in Hawkes, Yangs and Joly...……….…………..…….132
Table 3.8 McHugh and Wang’s renditions of 奶奶……………………………..…135
Table 3.9 Use of 姑娘 in the corpus……..….….….……..……………….………..138
Table 3.10 Renditions of 姑娘 in Hawkes, Yangs and Joly…….…………….…….140
Table 4.1 Titles for non-Jia men and their translations……….……………………147
Table 4.2 Use of 太爷 in the corpus………………………………………...……..149
Table 4.3 Renditions of 太爷 in Hawkes, Yangs and Joly………….………………152
Table 4.4 Use of 老爷 in the corpus…………………….…………………………164
Table 4.5 Renditions of 老爷 in Hawkes, Yangs and Joly…….………………..……167
Table 4.6 Use of 爷 in the corpus……………………………………………...…..173
Table 4.7 Renditions of 爷 in Hawkes, Yangs and Joly………...…………………175
Table 4.8 Use of 大爷 in the corpus………………………………………...…….180
Table 4.9 Renditions of 大爷 in Hawkes, Yangs and Joly……….………………..182
Table 5.1 Honorific terms in the corpus……………………………….……………196
Table 5.2 Self/Other honorifics in the corpus……………………………………..198
Table 5.3 Use and renditions of 兄 and 弟 and their compounds……….…………202
Table 5.4 Use and renditions of 先生, 晚生 and 在下…………...………………….221
Table 5.5 Honorifics of self/other extension in the corpus……………………….233
Table 5.6 Renditions of references to Self/Other’s wife…………………………..236
Table 5.7 Renditions of references to Self/Other’s (grand-)parents………....…….240
Table 5.8 Renditions of references to siblings of Self/Other’s wife………………...245
Table 5.9 Use and renditions of terms referring to Self/Other’s things…..……….251
Table 5.10 Use and renditions of terms for Self/Other’s siblings……….…….…..256

xiii


LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 Orientation of the five English translations of HLM…….….….………..56
Figure 2.2 The Chinese address system………..…………………………………….76
Figure 2.3 Line-up of 兄 and its derivatives on the formality continuum…………...85
Figure 4.1 Relationship between chief characters in HLM………………………..151

xiv


List of Symbols

Chinese

Pinyin

Literal English translation

红楼梦
太太
老太太
奶奶
姑娘
爷
太爷
老爷
大爷
兄

尊兄
老兄
弟
小弟
先生
老先生
晚生
在下
贵省
贵东家
令亲大人
令尊
尊翁
尊名
尊夫人
尊府
家父
家祖母
家父母
家岳母
贱荆
贱内
内人
儿妇

hong lou meng
tai tai
lao tai tai
nai nai
gu niang

ye
tai ye
lao ye
da ye
xiong
zun xiong
lao xiong
di
xiao di
xian sheng
lao xian sheng
wan sheng
zai xia
gui sheng
gui dong jia
lingqin da ren
ling zun
zun weng
zun ming
zun fu ren
zun fu
jia fu
jia zu fu
jia fu mu
jia yue mu
jian jing
jian nei
nei ren
er fu

Red Chamber Dream
Mrs.; madame
old lady; Venerable Madam
young mistress of the house
Miss
Master
Venerable Master
Mr.
young master
elder brother
respectable elder brother
old elder brother
younger brother
little younger brother
Mr.
old Mr.
late born
your subordinate
your honourable province
your honourable host
your refined great relative
your refined respectable (father)
your respectable (old man)
your respectable name
your respectable wife
your honourable mansion
my home father
my home grandfather
my home parent
my home mother-in-law

my humble wife
my humble interior
my interior woman
my son’s woman

xv


内兄
舍亲
小女
小婿
敝友
敝斋
小斋

nei xiong
she qin
xiao nu
xiao xu
bi you
bi zhai
xiao zhai

my interior elder brother
my hut’s relative
my little girl
my little son-in-law
my lowly friend
my lowly study

my little study

xvi


CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.0 OVERVIEW

The present study undertakes to make a product-oriented, descriptive comparison of
the first 12 chapters of five English versions of the eighteenth century Chinese novel
Hong Lou Meng 1 ( 《红楼梦》 or Red Chamber Dream 2 ) (to be abbreviated as HLM
hereinafter) with reference to their renditions of eight titles and thirty-five honorific
expressions that appear in these chapters. While both titles and honorifics pertain to the
general category of Terms of address or TA for short, TA is here taken as an umbrella
term which includes titles, kinship terms and honorifics (both self-deprecatory and otherelevating ones) which are used both to address and refer to people. This generalization
can find justification in Chao (1956:217) where both vocatives (i.e., terms of direct
address to call persons by) and designatives (i.e., mentioning terms, which one uses as
part of connected discourse in speaking of persons) are grouped under the general
heading. This categorization reflects the true picture of the use of Chinese terms of
address in HLM.

According to Wierzbicka (1991:333),

1

As will be mentioned later in this chapter, different English titles are used for its various translations. To
do fair to all translators, and to avoid confusion, pinyin, the Chinese spelling system, is adopted throughout
this thesis to refer to the Chinese original.
2

For purpose of reference and comparison, Chinese terms, such as names of persons, places, buildings,
notions, etc., are all shown in accordance with their Chinese (pinyin) spelling, with their characters and/or
literal meaning supplied in brackets.

1


Every language has its own key words, which reflect the core values of the culture.
Consequently, cultures can be revealingly studied, compared, and explained to outsiders
through their key words.

Starting from this perspective, we take terms of address occurring in HLM as “cultural
key words” (CKW) of the Chinese language of the time, and look at them as a culturespecific locus which could possibly require a translator of special attention because of the
way they are used and the cultural meaning values with which they are loaded. Based on
Venuti’s (1995) general premises about foreignizing and domesticating translation
strategies, this study primarily intends to contribute to Venuti’s postcolonial translation
theory by determining how aspects of translated texts can be practically analysed as
actualizations of the two strategies he advocates.

This chapter commences with an argumentation for the underlying theses on which
this study is established: (i) translating means translating culture, (ii) translating
constitutes a process of choice. This is followed by a presentation of the objectives, focus,
questions as well as hypotheses of the present study. After this presentation comes a brief
introduction of the Chinese novel HLM and its five English versions in our scrutiny.
Following a discussion of the implications of the study, this chapter concludes with an
introduction of the structure of the dissertation.

1.1 TWO THEORETICAL PREMISSES

1.1.1 Culture, Language and Translation

The pre-requisite for both the assumption of terms of address as cultural key
words and their use as a focus for translation studies here lies in the Sapir-Whorf and

2


Lotman chorus that no language can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture;
and no culture can exist which does not have at its centre the structure of natural language
(Lotman, 1978:211-32). This integrative view of language and culture entails that the
meaning of any linguistic item, address terms included, be properly understood only with
reference to the cultural context enveloping it. Since meaning is of particular importance
in translation, it follows that translation cannot be fully understood outside a cultural
frame of reference. It thus seems that a brief account of the basic conceptualization of
culture, language, and translation, and their relationships with one another should be in
place prior to the unfolding of the research analysis.

The concept of culture constitutes the concern of many different disciplines such
as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, literature and cultural studies, and the definitions
offered in these fields vary in accordance with the particular frame of reference involved.
Of these definitions, the humanistic and anthropological concepts of culture stand out as
most relevant to translation studies (House, 2002:93). The former concerns itself with the
“cultural heritage” as a model of refinement, an exclusive aggregation of a society’s
artifacts, i.e., masterpieces in fine arts, literature, music etc. The latter sees culture as
encompassing “the overall way of life of a community, i.e., all those traditional, explicit
and implicit designs for living which act as potential guides for the behaviour of members
of the culture” (ibid). Culture in this perspective refers not only to the “conventional ideal
of individual refinement, built upon a certain modicum of assimilated knowledge and
experience” (Sapir, 1964:81). More importantly, it “embraces…those general attitudes,
views of life, and specific manifestations of civilization that give a particular people its

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distinctive place in the world” (ibid:83). In what follows, the broad anthropological sense
of culture will be pursued.

With regard to the levels at which culture can be analysed, House (2002)
summarised four levels with which culture is characterised or differentiated: human,
societal/national, demographical and personal. The first level is the general human level
“along which human beings differ from animals” in that human beings are capable of
reflection, and able to shape and change their environment (ibid:93). The other general
ability which prevails universally across all cultures is the politeness phenomenon, which
will be reviewed in Section 2.3 below. The second level is the societal, national level,
where culture functions as “the unifying, binding force which enables human beings to
position themselves vis-à-vis systems of government, dominant activities, religious
beliefs and values” (ibid). The third level of culture, for House (ibid), “corresponds to the
second level but captures various societal and national subgroups” depending on
geographical region, social class, age, sex, professional activity and topic. Note that
although House does not apply the jargon “demographical” to define this level, these
features of characterization necessitate the abstraction. The fourth level is the personal,
the individual one pertaining to the individual’s guidelines of thinking and acting.
According to House (ibid), this level constitutes cultural consciousness “which enables a
human being to be aware of what characterises his or her own culture and makes it
distinct from others.”

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The integration of human, social and individual views of culture thus likens

culture to “the collective programming of the human mind” (Hofstede, 1991:5), a view
which gets elaborate formulation in Goodenough’s (1964:36) concept of culture as:

whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its
[i.e., a society’s] members, and do so in any role that they accept for any one of
themselves…Culture is not a material phenomenon; it does not consist of things, people,
behaviour, or emotions. It is rather an organization of these things. It is the forms of
things that people have in mind, their model of perceiving, relating, and otherwise
interpreting them.

The anthropological view of culture emphasises both the cognitive and social
aspects of culture: the former guides and monitors humans actions while the latter stresses
the traditional features shared by members of a society. The guiding and sharing of a
culture primarily take the form of values, norms, traditions, etc., which, in the long run,
result in both public and mental/private presentations among the members of the culture
who are being constantly influenced by it. From the viewpoint of the Prague School of
Linguistics or British Contextualism, “schools which conceive of language as primarily a
social phenomenon, which is naturally and inextricably intertwined with culture” (House,
2002:92), the influence of culture on the members of the society in which it is embedded
is “exerted most prominently” through language used by the members in their interactions
with members of both the same and different socio-cultural groups (ibid:93). This
overriding position of language presiding any culture, depends not merely on its takenfor-granted role as the most important means of communicating, of transmitting
information, and supplying human bonding. It is also established on its use by the
members of a culture as the prime means to acquire knowledge of the world, to transmit
or visualize their respective mental presentations. In addition, language also functions as
a means to categorise cultural experience, thought and behaviour. In a nutshell, language

5

becomes the prime instrument of a “collective knowledge reservoir” (ibid) to be passed
on from one generation to another.

It follows that language and culture are naturally and obviously interrelated, in the
most intimate manner, on the levels of semantics where the vocabulary of a language
reflects the culture shared by its speakers. And this thus naturally brings us back to our
preluding assumption of terms of address as cultural key terms. As will be reviewed in
Section 2.3 below, the use of terms of address to designate people constitutes a universal
politeness phenomenon, which falls on the first, i.e., the human, level of our
anthropological characterisation of culture. However, when, how and what address terms
to use to realize politeness with reference to address behaviour depends on the social
norms of a culture. And this constitutes the cultural specificity of the universal politeness
phenomenon where addressing and/or referring to people is concerned, an identification
which corresponds to the second and third levels of the anthropological differentiation of
culture, that is the social/national and demographical levels of culture.

Recognition of language as falling within the broader context of culture whereby
meaning is seen as contextually determined and constructed thus entails a cultural
implication for translation, a variability factor the translator has to take into account. As
Nida (1964:130) incisively puts it, “differences between cultures may cause more severe
complications for the translator than do differences in language structure.” This is
especially true of situations where CKW are involved. In Aixelá’s (1996:57) words,

There is a common tendency to identify [CKW] with those items especially linked to the
arbitrary area of each linguistic system – its local institutions, streets, historical figures,

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place names, personal names, periodicals, works of art, etc. – which will normally present

a translation problem in other languages.

Apparently, terms of address pertain to this category of lexical items and will
undoubtedly posit a problem in translation. To solve this problem, two diametrically
opposing approaches emerge as the usual practices, as succinctly depicted by Aixelá
(1996:54, original emphasis):

Thus, faced with the difference implied by the other, with a whole series of cultural signs
capable of denying and/or questioning our own way of life, translation provides the
receiving society with a wide range of strategies, ranging from conservation (acceptance
of the difference by means of the reproduction of the cultural signs in the source text), to
naturalization (transformation of the other into a cultural replica).

Admittedly, however, both Aixelá’s identification and conceptualisation of the
two strategies come as nothing new. As will be reviewed in 2.1 below, various terms have
been conceived to capture the strategical dichotomy of translations, from the timehonoured free-literal, to the contemporary foreignizing-domesticating. By adopting
Venuti’s dichotomy as a cover term, this study wishes to explore, more specifically, the
usefulness of the dichotomy as a way of analyzing and explaining how translators deal
with Chinese titles and honorifics concerned.

1.1.2 Translation as Choices

The definition of language and culture serves as a vantage point for a cultural
approach to translation as taking place in concrete, definable situations that involve
members of different cultures (Chesterman, 1993:2; Nord, 1997:23). Since translating
means comparing cultures (Nord, 1997:34), the translating process entails, first of all, a
process of comparing, and, then, one of motivated choices. This observation implies that

7

translation must be studied as the behaviour of (people who call themselves or are called)
translators, together with the end-results of their behaviour, i.e., translations. This
observation can be understood in the following manners, which is expected to help the
adoption of a descriptive approach for the present research.

On the one hand, if a text can be called appropriately “a translation”, it must
satisfy the “necessary and sufficient condition” that there must be a relation that can be
definitely perceived as existing between the source text (ST) and the target text (TT)
(Chesterman, 1993:3). If we ignore the criterion assumed upon the identification of some
mythical “perfect equivalence” (or even “adequate equivalence”) between the two texts in
question, we are left with two other means. One means of establishing the translation
status of a text is by virtue of the translator claiming that such a relation exists and the
receiver of the text accepting the claim. Under ideal, theoretical conditions, the larger the
proportion of receivers who agree with the translator’s claim, the stronger the claim
becomes. Nevertheless, if the receivers do not agree with the claim, the translation status
of the text becomes dubious. In this case, an alternative, more feasible means is necessary.
And this is descriptive translation studies. By using the protocol method, this approach
studies individual translation texts as products and translation process as a form of human
behaviour. Its purpose is to describe and explain any behaviour which leads to something
that can be appropriately called a translation. In other words, the approach, similar to
other general descriptive laws pertaining to any form of human behaviour, describes what
translators (at various levels of translation competence) tend to do under certain given
circumstances.

8


On the other hand, the rationality of human translation behaviour is procedural
rather than prescriptive or substantive. It is safe to assume that human translators are

rational beings. It follows that their translation behaviour is governed by rational
decisions. What is meant by rational behaviour is two-fold: the translating action is not
only based on some kind of text; it is also determined by the context and goal of the
behaviour. Text here is a broad, functional concept “combining verbal and nonverbal
elements, situational clues and ‘hidden’ or presumed information” (Nord, 1997:25). Like
any text, a text used as ST in the translating process is no longer the first and foremost
criterion for the translator’s decisions. Among the various sources of information used by
the translator, it may be regarded as an “offer of information” (ibid). Faced with this offer,
the translator chooses what s/he regards as interesting, useful or adequate to the desired
purpose, and then transfers it into the target culture, making it a new offer of information
therein. During this process, the translator can be trusted to make rational choices
“heuristically” (Chesterman, 1993:13). These choices are “not fixed in advance in any
mathematically precise sense. Instead, they are the “best” options the translator can think
of at the time, and represent a combination of his/her “past experience with selective
heuristics for reaching a satisfactory choice” (ibid). Behind each rational act is a
translation strategy, a potentially conscious procedure for the solution of a problem which
[the translator] is faced with when translating a text segment (Lörscher, 1991:76, cited in
Cheterman, ibid). Hatim and Mason (1990:12) are right in concluding that “[t]ranslation
is a matter of choice, but choice is always motivated: omissions, additions and alterations
may indeed be justified but only in relation to indented meaning”. Descriptive translation
studies will therefore set out to describe and account for the actual translation choices the
translator makes in actual translations.
9