Functional Analysis Of Creative Translation

Li Ch’ing-Chao’s Ci poetry is a shining star in the galaxy of Chinese classics,therefore researches about the poetess and her poetry abound; besides, translation ofher works began very early both in and out of China, with some choosing to translatepart of her poetry, and others translating her complete works. However, there are fewresearches on these translations, let alone researches on the translation of hercomplete works. This paper studies two English versions of Li’s complete works, so itis an opportune supplement to the field of Li’s poetry translation research. The focusof this paper is the creative translation phenomena and by studying and comparingthese two versions done by Xu Yuanchong and Kenneth Rexroth, who are respectivelyknown for creative translation in China and United States, this paper would be verytypical in the study of creative translation. What is more important, this paper tries toexplain the translation phenomena in the light of functionalistic theory, which hasnever been done before, and creatively analyzes both the source text and the targettext, with the latter analyzed more in detail on both intratextual and extratextual levels.By doing so, this paper enables the reader to evaluate the translations more accuratelyand appreciate them with a more systematical and comprehensive perspective, andmeanwhile provides examples and lessons for the translation practice of Chineseclassics.