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Your nose is as sleek as goose fat: the standard of Chinese beauty in the English tongue

In Hong Lou Meng, the straightforward description of the appearances of young women characters is highly prevalent; Cao used rhetorical devices of metaphors and similes to present abstract beauty into something visual. As English and Chinese culture and the norms of works of literature do not sh...

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Main Authors: Wang, Hui, Looi, Wai Ling
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2021
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17313/1/44929-159438-2-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17313/
https://ejournal.ukm.my/3l/issue/view/1407
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spelling my-ukm.journal.173132021-08-16T00:55:24Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17313/ Your nose is as sleek as goose fat: the standard of Chinese beauty in the English tongue Wang, Hui Looi, Wai Ling In Hong Lou Meng, the straightforward description of the appearances of young women characters is highly prevalent; Cao used rhetorical devices of metaphors and similes to present abstract beauty into something visual. As English and Chinese culture and the norms of works of literature do not share the same standard of beauty and the choice of images, the translation, on one hand, runs into the dilemma of keeping the image of the original and thus compromises its reader’s understanding; yet on the other hand, abandoning the image of the original loses the image of beauty depicted in the source text. This paper concentrates on translation into English of the metaphors utilised in describing the beauty of females in Hong Lou Meng, by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang (1978) and by David Hawkes and John Minford (1973). Linguistic metaphors are categorised based on Dagut’s (1976) notion of shared cultural experiences and semantic association whilst the main aim is to find out the extent to which the original image could be retained. The findings show that retention of images in translating beauty-related metaphors is acceptable in shared metaphors and half-shared metaphors. As for non-shared metaphors, the retention of images is acceptable with some additional ‘help’ by adding sense. Meanwhile, the usage of standard TL image, be it added with sense or made more explicit through the usage of simile, should be avoided as far as possible in canonised texts. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2021-06 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17313/1/44929-159438-2-PB.pdf Wang, Hui and Looi, Wai Ling (2021) Your nose is as sleek as goose fat: the standard of Chinese beauty in the English tongue. 3L; Language,Linguistics and Literature,The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies., 27 (2). pp. 116-129. ISSN 0128-5157 https://ejournal.ukm.my/3l/issue/view/1407
institution Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
building Tun Sri Lanang Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
content_source UKM Journal Article Repository
url_provider http://journalarticle.ukm.my/
language English
description In Hong Lou Meng, the straightforward description of the appearances of young women characters is highly prevalent; Cao used rhetorical devices of metaphors and similes to present abstract beauty into something visual. As English and Chinese culture and the norms of works of literature do not share the same standard of beauty and the choice of images, the translation, on one hand, runs into the dilemma of keeping the image of the original and thus compromises its reader’s understanding; yet on the other hand, abandoning the image of the original loses the image of beauty depicted in the source text. This paper concentrates on translation into English of the metaphors utilised in describing the beauty of females in Hong Lou Meng, by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang (1978) and by David Hawkes and John Minford (1973). Linguistic metaphors are categorised based on Dagut’s (1976) notion of shared cultural experiences and semantic association whilst the main aim is to find out the extent to which the original image could be retained. The findings show that retention of images in translating beauty-related metaphors is acceptable in shared metaphors and half-shared metaphors. As for non-shared metaphors, the retention of images is acceptable with some additional ‘help’ by adding sense. Meanwhile, the usage of standard TL image, be it added with sense or made more explicit through the usage of simile, should be avoided as far as possible in canonised texts.
format Article
author Wang, Hui
Looi, Wai Ling
spellingShingle Wang, Hui
Looi, Wai Ling
Your nose is as sleek as goose fat: the standard of Chinese beauty in the English tongue
author_facet Wang, Hui
Looi, Wai Ling
author_sort Wang, Hui
title Your nose is as sleek as goose fat: the standard of Chinese beauty in the English tongue
title_short Your nose is as sleek as goose fat: the standard of Chinese beauty in the English tongue
title_full Your nose is as sleek as goose fat: the standard of Chinese beauty in the English tongue
title_fullStr Your nose is as sleek as goose fat: the standard of Chinese beauty in the English tongue
title_full_unstemmed Your nose is as sleek as goose fat: the standard of Chinese beauty in the English tongue
title_sort your nose is as sleek as goose fat: the standard of chinese beauty in the english tongue
publisher Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate 2021
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17313/1/44929-159438-2-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17313/
https://ejournal.ukm.my/3l/issue/view/1407
_version_ 1709668473333874688
score 13.211869

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