Abstract
Euphemism is a language expression of social culture. The Dreams of the Red Mansions, as an encyclopedia of Chinese traditional culture, contains a large number of euphemisms. The accurate and appropriate translation of such culture-loaded words is certainly a big problem. Taking the two complete translated versions—Yangs’ and Hawkes' version, as an example, this paper tends to summarize the problems and methods in translating euphemisms by using the literal translation, free translation and explanation added in the text. It is concluded that when we are translating the euphemisms in A Dreams of Red Mansions, we should not only retain the original culture, but also make the versions easy to be understood by the target readers, and that is very target of the translation.
Key words:A Dreams of Red Mansions, euphemism, translation techniques
contents
1. Introduction 1
2. The Study of Euphemism in and out of China 2
2.1 Present researches on A Dream of Red Mansions 2
2.2 Euphemism in English 3
2.3 Euphemism in Chinese 3
2.4 The comparison of euphemism in Chinese and English 4
3. Euphemisms in A Dreams of Red Mansions 6
3.1 Euphemisms about death 6
3.2 Euphemisms about disease 7
3.3 Euphemisms about sex 7
3.4 Euphemisms about pregnancy 8
4 . Translation Techniques of Euphemisms in A Dreams of Red Mansions 10
4.1 Literal translation 10
4.2 Free translation 11
4.3 Explanation added in text 12
5. Conclusion 14
Acknowledgements 15
References 16