Cultural Facsimile In Northern Shaanxi Folk Song Lyrics Translation

This thesis gives a systematic analysis of 13 northern Shaanxi folk songs selected from Professor Wang Hongyin's book Voice from the northwest with the help of definitions of language, culture and translation as well as their relationships. The author points out the particularity of song lyrics translation and the importance of understanding equivalence theory properly in dealing with culture facsimile in northern Shaanxi folk song translation.As a combination of language and music, song is an art form that carries big amount of culture information. Northern Shaanxi folk song is an important branch in Chinese folk songs. It is popular among listeners because of the simple language, abundant content, strong sense of local color and special way of singing.However, for quiet a long time, little attention has been paid to the translation of northern Shaanxi folk song translation in both translation and musical field. Dialect and culture elements with strong sense of local color make the translation of northern Shaanxi folk song much more difficult. Due to the distinguished features of lyrics, the translated version should convey exactly the same feeling to the TL readers as to the SL readersUp to now, the published academic books and papers are mainly dealing with the translatability of song lyrics and how to match the translated version with the music. While most of them are about E---C translation. Little attention has been paid to translate Chinese songs into other languages. Systematic study toward northern Shaanxi folk song translation did not started until 2009. Therefore, researches concerning culture facsimile in northern Shaanxi folk song translation are limited as well.Culture differences between east and west always exist. Research concerning culture facsimile in northern Shaanxi folk song translation plays a significant role in introducing northern Shaanxi folk song to the world and offer those listeners who are interested in Chinese culture and have the intention to know more about northern Shaanxi a chance to learn something from the song.This thesis, based on Voice from the Northwest, will analyze the relationship among language, culture and translation. Voice From The Northwest was translated and edited by Professor Wang Hongyin. Thirteen folk songs that can best embody features of Northern Shaanxi folk songs were selected from the book. By analyzing the English version of those songs from the perspective of equivalence theory, this thesis will elaborate ways of dealing with unique features of those songs when conduct translations. Through out this thesis, significance will be laid on profound awareness of language and culture differences, adequate understanding of those songs and proficient involvement of equivalence theory.