Translating Culture-specific Elements in Names in Hong Lou Meng: A Comparison of The Story of the Stone and The Dream of Red Mansion

The names of the characters in Hong Lou Meng, crafted to indicate both the development of the storyline and the characteristics of the characters, contain abundant culture-specific elements, which make them difficult to render into English. On the basis of a systematic study on the original work and its two unabridged translations of Hong Lou Meng, the culture-specific elements in the original names are categorized into the following three: Chinese naming, Chinese family hierarchy and Chinese Character. Three strategies on compensation for the lost culture-specific elements are found to be employed at different levels in the two translations, including on-line compensation, off-line compensation and zero compensation. The strategy of on-line compensation involves semantic translation plus transliteration and annotation in text. Off-line compensation includes note of Chinese spelling, annotation out of text, interpretation of characters’ names in introduction, note ofcharacters’ names in appendix, introduction of characters in appendix and dendrogram of genealogy; Zero compensation includes transliteration, omission, transfer, substitution and literal translation.