Contrastive Analysis Of English Translations Of Tang Poems From The Perspective Of Functional Grammar

Classical Chinese Poetry (CCP) is characterized by its refined language, profound thought, rich imagery, strong passion as well as distinctive rhyme and rhythm. The research object is restricted to Tang Poems and their translations due to the richness of CCP. CCP had its heyday in the Tang Dynasty. In the development of Chinese literature, Tang Poems with their distinctive features are considered as national treasure and appreciated by people all over the world. The well-known British sinologist Herbert A.Giles can be considered as a pioneer to translate Tang Poems into English in the late nineteenth century. For over a hundred years, the translations of Tang Poems make great contributions to the exchange of Chinese and foreign cultures. China is one research center of the English translations of CCP. For instance, Chinese translator Xu Yuanzhong has proposed"Three Beauties"(Beauty of Meaning, Beauty of Sound, Beauty of Form) as the translation principles on CCP, which provide helpful guidance and are popularly applied to the translation of CCP. From linguistic angle, the author makes an attempt to analyze some Tang Poems and their translations from the perspective of Metafunction Theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), in which three functions are included: Ideational Function, Interpersonal Function, Textual function.M.A.K. Halliday has discovered and developed SFL since the middle of the twentieth century. As one of the most influential linguistic theories in the twentieth century, SFL has great effect on various disciplines related to language. Halliday's Metafunction Theory runs through the whole Systemic-Functional Grammar, and is considered as one of the key theories in Systemic-Functional Grammar. Taking Metafunction Theory as the theoretical guidance, the purpose of this thesis is to check the practicality and operability of SFL on the translation research of CCP by the analysis of Tang Poems and their translations. Meanwhile, through the research on concrete texts the author tries to discover and summarize some translation rules on CCP, which will be helpful for translators and translation researchers to better understand the original poems and handle their translations.Chapter Three, Chapter Four and Chapter Five are the body in the thesis. The author analyzes the Ideational Function, Interpersonal Function and Textual Function of Tang Poems and their translations respectively. In this thesis, the author has taken fourteen Tang Poems in complete versions and other selected lines as the research objects. In order to make the research of this thesis persuasive and applicable, when choosing the poems, the author has paid close attention to choose Tang Poems with different forms (both Modern Style Poetry and Ancient Style Poetry) and various subjects or content. For their English translations, the author has also made efforts to find any possible translations at home and abroad. From the review of previous studies, we find that some researchers have already applied Metafunction Theory to the analysis of CCP, but their analyses are usually limited to one poem or one function. The thesis takes an overall view to analyze the three metafunctions of Tang Poems and their translated versions systematically and comprehensively. And the author also reaches some helpful conclusions to the translation of poetry, hoping to enlighten translators and translation researchers.