Analysis Of The Heroine Wang Qiyao In The English Version Of The Song Of Everlasting Sorrow From The Transitivity Perspective

The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai is a novel written by the contemporary writer Wang Anyi in the 1990 s.It tells the story of the short and tortuous life of the heroine Wang Qiyao.The English version of The Song of Everlasting Sorrow was translated by Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan,who are proficient in both English and Chinese.It boomed overseas as soon as it was published.Systemic-Functional Grammar is a set of theories with strict theoretical framework and strong practicability.Transitivity system,as an important part of realizing ideational function,is often used as an effective analysis model for literary works.From the perspective of transitivity system,this thesis will explore the specific image of the heroine Wang Qiyao in the English version of The Song of Everlasting Sorrow and verify whether her image shaping reflects female consciousness.Based on the Chinese and English parallel corpus of The Song of Everlasting Sorrow,all the clauses in which“Wang Qiyao” participated were retrieved,and the process types of these clauses and the participating roles of “Wang Qiyao” were classified and counted by taking the BFSU Qualitative Coder as a tool.The transitive features of Wang Qiyao’s image building will be obtained by combining the main plots of this novel,and then the concrete image of Wang Qiyao and her female consciousness will be analyzed.The research findings are as follows: 1)The English version of The Song of Everlasting Sorrow mainly constructs the female image of Wang Qiyao through the Material process and the Mental process,among which the Material process reflects the effective reaction of the character to the external environment,while the Mental process reflects Wang Qiyao’s inner world.In addition,the Verbal process and the Relational process also play a crucial role in the construction of Wang Qiyao’s image through her discourses and appearance.2)Through transitivity analysis,it is found that Wang Qiyao has a well-behaved and harmless appearance and elegant temperament,with an exquisite sensitivity about people and things around her,but the outlook of her is limited.Wang Qiyao not only has her own independent thought and attitude towards life,but also is shrewd in mind and has initiative in all aspects.The pursuit of refined life is what she always insists on.3)These images of Wang Qiyao reflect her life consciousness,self-examination consciousness and aesthetic consciousness,which are the three important forms of female consciousness.Based on these findings,this thesis has certain reference value for the study of the specific image of Wang Qiyao and her female consciousness,from which we can see the image of women in old Shanghai in the eyes of the translators.In addition,the study is based on transitivity system,hoping to highlight the application value of transitivity system in literature and provide a new perspective for understanding and appreciating literary works.