August 11, 2025Open Access

C-E Translation of Culture-loaded Words from the Perspective of Cross-cultural Communication: Taking A Dream of Red Mansions as Examples

Key Points

Translation strategies affect how well culture-loaded words are understood in another language, and each translated term carries unique cultural significance.
Hawkes and Yang's translations of A Dream of Red Mansions illustrate the challenges posed by culture-loaded words, which include ecological and social terms.
Examining literature reveals how translation strategies can either bridge or widen cultural gaps in understanding.
Cross-cultural communication theories provide a framework for understanding the complexities involved in translating culturally rich texts.

Abstract

A Dream of Red Mansions, one of the four great classical novels in China, is world-renowned. From a cross-cultural perspective, this paper examines the translation of culture-loaded terms from Chinese into English, taking the English translations of A Dream of Red Mansions by David Hawkes and by Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang as examples. The large number of culture-loaded words contained in it pose major challenges and difficulties in the translation work. Through a literature review, this paper sorts out cross-cultural communication and translation theories, and elaborates on the definition and classification of culture-loaded words. By analyzing examples of the translation of ecological, linguistic, religious, material, and social culture-loaded words in A Dream of Red Mansions, it examines the effects of different translation strategies adopted by Hawkes and Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang.

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