Praat-based Studies On Sound Beauty Of Librettos Of Mu Dan Ting And Its Two English Versions

As one of the oldest traditional operas in China,Kun Opera’s stage musicality in performance is self-evident.In the recent years,the research on Kun Opera translation has been carried out from the following perspectives: multimodal perspective,translation aesthetic perspective,subjectivity of translator and English translation practice,etc.A review of current studies on Kun Opera translation reveals that there are a few studies assisted by Praat and in these studies,researchers use speech synthesis software to transform text into speech mode,and make a comparative study in light of duration,intensity and pitch of characters’ librettos among different translations.Due to the special musicality of Kun Opera,this study employs Praat 6.0to explore the musical beauty of the translated librettos of Kun Opera.This study selects the symbolic act Jing Meng of classic Kun Opera Mu Dan Ting and its two English translations by Wang Rongpei and by Xu Yuanchong&Xu Ming as research objects.From the perspective of Xu Yuanchong’s sound beauty combined with theories of prosodic phonology,with assistance of phonetic software Praat 6.0,this study analyzes the prosodic features and sound beauty effects of the original text and two English versions and explores the impact of prosody on the sound beauty of Kun Opera to select the translation closer to the original.The source text and English versions are analyzed in terms of rhyme and rhythm,and a professional Kun Opera actor was invited to sing the original text to obtain the audio.With help of speech software Interphonic 6.0,audios of the two English translations were produced.Duration,pitch and intensity are selected as analysis parameters.As a data-based study,this study focuses on data differences and the impact of prosody on different translations so as to explore a text translation evaluation system based on prosodic phonology.The results show that:(1)in terms of rhyme and rhythm,both Wang’s and Xu’s versions attach importance to prosody,but Xu’s version basically employs the same consonance in two consecutive clauses,which is closer to the original;(2)in light of duration,librettos of Wang’s version are basically shorter than Xu’s.When actors perform on stage,shorter librettos seem to be more flexible.Due to the singing according to the Gongche notation,the duration of the Chinese original is muchlonger than the two English versions,almost four to five times as long as English versions;(3)on the pitch level,this study mainly explores the pitch fluctuation.Compared with Wang’s version,Xu’s translation has more obvious tonal change,which is beneficial to the expression of emotional fluctuation.In respect of the position and amplitude of fluctuation,Xu’s version is more similar to the original text,but it also increases the difficulty for actors to reproduce the pitch changes in a short time;(4)in light of intensity,the intensity of the original is very similar to that of the two translations.In comparison,Xu’s with more twists and turns in intensity is liable to express characters’ emotion.