Constructional Shift in Translating Hong Lou Meng: A Case Study of the Yang and Hawkes–Minford English Translations

Abstract

This study investigates constructional shifts in two influential English translations of Hong Lou Meng: the version by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang and the Hawkes–Minford version translated by David Hawkes and John Minford. Drawing on Construction Grammar and cognitive approaches to translation, the study adopts a qualitative comparative case-study design to examine how source-language constructions are reconfigured in the two translations. The analysis focuses on three textual domains: culturally loaded terms, poetic structures, and dialogue and narrative voice. Constructional shifts are examined across syntactic, lexical, semantic, pragmatic, and stylistic dimensions, with particular attention to their effects on semantic fidelity, cultural representation, literary style, and target-language readability. The analysis shows that the Yang version generally exhibits a stronger tendency to retain source-text structural relations and culturally specific meanings, whereas the Hawkes–Minford version more frequently employs restructuring, explicitation, and stylistic adaptation to enhance accessibility and literary fluency in English. These recurring differences reveal distinct translational orientations rather than a simple opposition between literal and free translation. The study argues that constructional shift provides an integrated framework for explaining how linguistic form, conceptual organization, cultural meaning, and literary function are reconstructed across languages, thereby contributing to the study of literary translation from a construction-based perspective.