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Therefore, there are still many problems concerning the translation of Chinese classical poetry. With the principles of Professor Xu Yuanchong and Eugene A. Nida, I will research on the English version of Chinese classical poetry translated by Professor Xu from the perspective of functional equivalence.
1.2 Purpose of the Research
This research focuses on Professor Xu’s translation of Chinese classical poetry with the help of functional equivalence theory. Since there have been a lot of previous study of poetry translation from different aspects, this paper will analyze from two aspects: the translation of images and figures of speech in poetry. As we all know, images can be classified into different aspects, and I only focus on the natural images and cultural images. Similarly, I will analyze three kinds of figures of speech, which are personification, hyperbole and metaphor. So, this paper bends on solving three questions below:
1. How does Professor Xu Yuanchong translate the natural images and cultural images in the poems?
2. What are the strategies in translating the figures of speech, especially personification, hyperbole and metaphor in the poems?
3. Do these translations in images and figures of speech reach the effect of functional equivalence? If not, what does it result from and can we have a better translation?
1.3 Significance of the Research
As Chinese classical poetry is a precious treasure in our culture, reflecting many aspects of the ancient times, such as people’s life, social customs and personal feelings, etc., it can be an introduction of our ancient culture for those who are interested in Chinese culture. If these poems are well translated, the foreigners will not only get a lot of information about China but also gain the same experience like our original message reader in the beautiful wording of these poems after reading.
However, it is a rather difficult and demanding task to translate poetry due to the difference in language and culture for most of people. What’s more, the rich expressions of different images reflecting the poet’s feelings and the vivid language using different figures of speech add to the difficulty of translating. The two aspects are the main elements in most poems, creating a beautiful artistic conception for readers to imagine. If one can have these images and figures of speech well translated, the essence of the poetry can be substantially conveyed to the target language readers. Therefore, it is an important work to find out proper approaches to translating poetry especially in images and figures of speech, which is the key to the success of translation.
1.4 Method and Approach
This research adopts the method of data collecting, statistics and text analysis for its research. First of all, I will collect 50 original poems rich in images and the English versions translated by Professor Xu, and then classify the images into two kinds: natural images and cultural images. Second, I will figure out the number of images equivalently translated and which are not translated equivalently. After this, I will analyze the original poem and its English version to find out the reason why some of the images cannot be translated equivalently. Similarly, I will collect original poems and their English versions with the use of personification, hyperbole, and metaphor. According to the different strategies applied in the translation, I will also classify them into equivalent effect and nonequivalent effect. After collecting these statistics, I will choose some of those poems to analyze respectively. In order to see whether the translation is equivalent with the original poem, first I will try to get understood of the poems and reproduce the scenery or the idea that poets depict in their poems. Then, I will focus on the translation of different images and figures of speech with the help of functional equivalence theory. In each poem, I compare the original word and its translation to see whether it has used the closest natural equivalent of the source-language message. Due to the different features of images and figures of speech, the strategies used in translating will be certainly not the same.