Hamlet Act 3 Translation Analysis

This analysis study compare three Chinese translation versions of the Hamlet (by William Shakespeare) Act III, Scene IV (excerpt: from “Enter Queen” to “Exit ghost”). These three versions are translated by Lin Tongji in 1982, Peng Jingxi in 2001 and Zhu Sheunghao in 1994. In here, different translation will have total diverse from each other. Analyzing which version is better from its translation style, equivalence, vocabulary and Xindaya, etc.

In the following section, the analysis will divided into five parts. First, I will briefly introduce the content of the play. Second, using the Homles ‘map’ of translation studies to illustrate and explain the differentiation between three versions. Next, analyzing the usage of free translation and

For Lin and Zhu, they were both Chinese while Peng was raised in Taiwan. According to the Holmes map, area-restricted and text-type restricted theories can be applied in this case. Although three versions are in Chinese, but the vocabulary usages, lexical considerations and connectors are differ from their own. The prime reason of these contrast come from the culture difference. Hyperion was translated into太陽神by Lin and Zhu while Peng translated as日神. Perhaps it is just a minor difference from three versions, but how they present can completely show

Lin has translated it in sense-for-sense way which is“是甚麼魔鬼哄你喝下了這口迷魂湯？”, “迷魂湯” means the one’s behavior or saying bewitch another one. Although the presentation method is not word-for-word translated, the primal function of this sentence in English version is equivalent. If the original message is not largely affected, it would not be a major problems in translation. Also, the target text is literary polished and easily adapted to the taste of the Chinese public either. In Zhu’s version, it was translated into “那麼是甚麼魔鬼蒙住了你的眼睛，把你這樣欺騙呢？” and in Peng’s translation, it is “是哪個惡魔這樣矇住您的眼睛欺騙您？. Their translation is slightly different from each other, still we can see they adopted the method of literal translation which is rendering adhering closely to source-language syntax. Comparing to the translation provided by Lin, it is more straight-forward but less authentic in target