翻译里的意识形态标签——基于语料库的《红楼梦》两个英译本比较

Ideological markers in translation: A corpus-based comparison between two English versions of Hongloumeng

本文基于《红楼梦》杨宪益译本和霍克斯译本构建的语料库,以意识形态为研究对象,量化比较两个译本在名物化、及物性、情态和衔接四个维度的意识形态标签频次,用批评话语分析的方法分析和讨论得出数据和事实。结果显示:霍译本里的意识形态标签频次显著高于杨译本。由此推断,两位译者的关注焦点大相径庭,杨更多关注故事里的事件过程和参与者,而霍更多关注事件发生的环境。这些差异和不同的关注焦点的原因可能与文化、社会和译者个人的背景有关。因此,我们认为,意识形态对事件描述视角和译者的观点及态度都有着微妙但却实实在在的影响。

Based on the translation corpus of Hongloumeng(Yangs’ version and Hawkes’ version), the present study takes ideology as the research issue and attempts to quantitatively compare their frequency of ideological markers from four dimensions, namely nominalization, transitivity,modality and cohesion. Then, by the approach of CDA, the present study tries to analyze and discuss the results. It is found that the frequency of ideological markers in Hawkes’ version is significantly higher than that in Yangs’, which indicates that Yang focused more on the process and participants of the events in Hongloumeng while Hawkes focused more on the circumstances under which these events happened. This is probably related to the difference in the culture, society and social status between the two translations. Thus, we believe that ideology exerts subtle but definitely visible influences on the perspectives of event portrayal and on translation.