Translation and Culture——With Special Reference to the Translation of Hong Lou Meng

In his A Linguistic Theory of Translation, C. J. Catford(1965:20)defines translation as "the replacement of textual materialin one language(SL)by equivalent textualmaterial in another language(TL)." Although he elaborates on the two lexical items "textual material" and "equivalent," such a narrowly linguistic approach to translation tends to stress that translation involves the transfer of "meaning" con-