Abstract

The famous Chinese classic novel A Dream of Red Mansions has two complete English translation versions; one was translated by Chinese translator Yang and the other by foreign translator David Hawkes. By comparing the materials cited from the two different English renditions, this paper considers to study on the cultural differences in them, especially the functions of translators’ different cultural backgrounds in translating. It argues that the variations of translators’ cultural backgrounds are often the reasons of differences in translation versions. In other words, translation is invisibly affected by translator’s aim, ideology and national psychology etc.

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