The translation of food in Hong Lou Meng: a cross-linguistic study based on the English and French versions

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper presents the results of a corpus-based investigation of the English and French translations of Chinese food-related culture-specific items (CSIs) in the classic Chinese novel Hong Lou Meng (A Dream of Red Mansions). The aim of the study is threefold: i) to determine what (translation) techniques were commonly used to render these Chinese CSIs through systematic quantitative analysis; ii) to determine whether the translations tended to be foreignized, neutralized, or domesticated; and iii) to compare the two target texts (TTs) in order to identify similarities and differences. The quantitative analysis was conducted within the existing theoretical framework, and methods from the field of corpus-based studies were used. The results indicate two significant similarities between the English and French TTs: first, neutralizing techniques are the most prominent, followed by foreignizing and domesticating techniques in descending order; second, direct translation and paraphrase are the most frequently used techniques. However, data from the two TTs show significant differences in the distribution of techniques, the degree of neutralization, and the frequency of several techniques (e.g. generalization and compression). Moreover, comparing the English and French translations of the same Chinese CSI reveals more cross-linguistic differences than similarities.