English Translation Of Chinese Lyrics From The Perspective Of Translation Variation Theory

China,with a five-thousand-year civilization,features world-known cultural achievements,among them a variety of music styles.Now how to protect and promote these artistic treasures has become an increasingly heated topic,and relatively few studies have been made on the translation and performance of national songs and dramas in external communication.Hence,this study analyzes and discusses the English translation of Chinese songs primarily from the perspective of singability and promotability according to translation variation theory,and makes a test translation of a piece of old tune work after a brief summary of its features.This study adopts such methods as investigation,case study and literature research in analysis and discussion in the hope that certain theoretical results should be obtained as a guide for translation practice.This paper analyzes some translated works of Chinese songs available online,finding that these methods of edited translation,narrated translation,translation plus writing and translation plus imitation under translation variation theory apply to them,with various adjustments in different cases.Then a particular emphasis is placed on the translation works by Wen Shilong of northern Shaanxi folk songs,with discussions of their advantages and defects from linguistic,cultural and musical perspectives and an optimization scheme in general is provided.Eventually,old tune,a genre rarely translated before is chosen for further analysis and translation.This study makes breakthroughs in the following aspects:First,more representative samples are selected.All popular music samples chosen in this study are available online,so results achieved through the analysis of translated lyrics sung to melody are more practical.Second,singability serves as the major standard of lyrics translation,which ensures that lyrics are translated for performance instead of pure study on the paper.Third,melody variation is proposed.Given the compatibility between a national music type and its lyric language,adjustments should also be made in melody on thecondition that the original essence should be retained for the sake of target listeners' appreciation needs.Fourth,test is carried out on analysis results and translation work.Test translation is made of a piece of old tune work and this English version will be performed to adapted accompaniment for examination by listeners.