On the Study of Chinese Puns in English Translation from a Rhetorical Perspective: A Case Study on Xi You Ji and its Two English Translations

Abstract

From a rhetorical perspective, the article takes the puns in Xi You Ji (Journey to the West) and its two English translations as the object of study and divides the puns into three categories: homonymy, homophony, and paronomasia puns respectively. The two translations deal with the three types of puns in very different ways. Yu’s translation deals with the puns in the original by the strategy of direct translation or phonetic translation with annotations, which largely compensates for the lack of puns when they are transformed in a foreign context. While Jenner’s translation mostly adopts the direct translation strategy, and only a few puns have been translated with annotations. The translations of the typical puns in the original text are comparable between the two translations, and both of them try to achieve phonetic, meaning, and morphological equivalence with the original text. However, from an overall perspective, the richness of translation and compensation in Jenner’s translation is much inferior to those in Yu’s translation.