Hong Lou Meng in the English World: reception of a translated Chinese classic in digital media

ABSTRACT

As an integration of translation studies with audience research in media studies, this paper explores how English readers react to the translated Chinese classic novel Hong Lou Meng. This exploration is primarily based on qualitative and quantitative analyses of a tagged corpus of digital reader reviews of four English translations of the novel by Hawks & Minford, the Yangs, Wang, and Joly. This study reveals that English versions of Hong Lou Meng have small readership, despite receiving generally positive evaluations. Readers appreciate the novel’s setting and poetry in all of the English versions, although the sporadic plot is not highly valued. The myriad character names that are mostly Romanised pose a notable challenge for English readers. In relation to the circulation of novels across languages and cultures, this study underlines the importance of a focused storyline and readable exotic cultural and literary elements to attract a large readership to translated literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Hong Lou Meng
• readers’ reception
• comments
• sentiment analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jianwei Zheng

Doctor Jianwei Zheng is a researcher at School of Foreign Languages, Fuzhou University. His research interest is translational communication. Some of his recent academic papers are published in Pragmatics and Society, Communications, and Digital Scholarship in the Humanities. Wenjun Fan is a researcher at Fuzhou University. Her research interest covers translation history, literary translation, and translation practice.