magazinelogo

The Educational Review, USA

ISSN Online: 2575-7946 Downloads: 1007786 Total View: 8953752
Frequency: monthly ISSN Print: 2575-7938 CODEN: TERUBB
Email: edu@hillpublisher.com
ArticleOpen Access http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/er.2023.07.021

A Study on the English Translation of Name Metaphor in A Dream of Red Mansions from the Perspective of Conceptual Metaphor

Wenbin Ye

University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.

*Corresponding author: Wenbin Ye

Published: August 25,2023

Abstract

In A Dream of Red Mansions, Cao Xueqin constructs a world of metaphors in which these metaphors become an integral part of the novel. The metaphors play an instrumental role in the expression of novel themes and the building of its characters. The study of metaphor is an important part in the translation of A Dream of Red Mansions. Metaphor is usually considered a rhetorical phenomenon, whilst most translation studies tackle it merely at the linguistic level, without addressing the fundamental contradiction between understanding and expression in metaphorical translation. As per this understanding, cognitive linguistics considers metaphor as a fundamental way of conceptualising abstract categories; meanwhile, metaphor studies have gradually transferred from a purely rhetorical view to a more systematic cognitive one. This essay adopts the conceptual metaphor theory of cognitive linguistic to explore the English translation of character’s name in Hawkes translated version of A Dream of Red Mansions, analyzing the English translation of character’s name metaphor through the cultural and literary contexts so as to examine its advantages and disadvantages.

Keywords

Character’s name translation,A Dream of Red Mansions, Conceptual Metaphor

References

Chen Naixin. Research on the metaphorical translation of Huo Yi's A Dream of Red Mansions from the perspective of conceptual metaphor [D]. Gansu: Lanzhou Jiaotong University, 2017.

Feng Qinghua. Red Translation Art Circle—Research on the Translation Art of A Dream of Red Mansions [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2006. 

Haoran Zhu, Lei Lei & Hugh Craig. Prose, Verse and Authorship in Dream of the Red Chamber: A Stylometric Analysis, Journal of Quantitative Linguistics, 2021, 28:4, 289-305, DOI: 10.1080/09296174.2020.1724677.

Lakoff, Johnson. Metaphors We Live By [M]. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980/2003.

Ma, G., Zhu, J., Chen, W., Wang, W. Personality Traits Characterized by the Adjectives in A Dream of Red Mansions. In: Wang, W. (eds) Chinese Perspectives on Cultural Psychiatry. Springer, Singapore. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3537-2_3.

Wei Ying. A comparative study on the English translation of the Fate Implied Language of the characters in A Dream of Red Mansions [D]. Beijing: University of International Business and Economics, 2014.

Zhou Xiaoman, Yang Jingya. Research on English Translation of A Dream of Red Mansions from the Perspective of Conceptual Metaphor [J]. Overseas English (I), 2013, (12):517-518.

How to cite this paper

A Study on the English Translation of Name Metaphor in A Dream of Red Mansions from the Perspective of Conceptual Metaphor

How to cite this paper:  Wenbin Ye. (2023). A Study on the English Translation of Name Metaphor in A Dream of Red Mansions from the Perspective of Conceptual Metaphor. The Educational Review, USA7(7), 968-972.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/er.2023.07.021