A Corpus-Based Study On The Translator’s Style Of Tao Yuanming’s Poetry

Tao Yuanming is the earliest pioneer of idyllic poetry in Chinese history,and his fame has spread far and wide,both at home and abroad.His poetic thought contains the essence of Confucianism,Taoism and Buddhism,which is the essence of Chinese poetic history.Tao’s poetry also plays an irreplaceable role in the overseas dissemination of Chinese culture.In terms of the current state of translation in China,the English translation of Tao Yuanming’s poems by Mr.Fang Zhong in 1984 was the earliest,and the translation of Tao Yuanming’s selected poems by Mr.Wang Rongpei in 2000 was the latest one of the most.Mr.Wang Rongpei and Mr.Fang Zhong are the translators of Tao’s poems and transmitters of Taoist culture with significant influence in the translation works of Tao Yuanming poetry in China.Based on the two translations of Tao Yuanming’s Poetry by Mr.Fang Zhong and Mr.Wang Rongpei,this study adopts a corpus to analyze to conduct a multidimensional study of the translators’ styles of the two authors.This study examines the differences between the two translators in terms of translator style from two perspectives: the linguistic level and the non-linguistic feature level of the translation.First of all,at the level of linguistic features,the author examines three perspectives: lexical,syntactic,and textual.The study results show that Mr.Fang uses more negative expressions and Mr.Wang less in terms of word usage.Moreover,Wang pays more attention to the coherence of the discourse and uses more conjunctions.As for the choice of tense,Mr.Fang prefers to use past expressions,while Mr.Wang uses more future tense expressions.In terms of the level of rhetorical splendor,Mr.Fang is relatively more sophisticated.On the level of syntax,Mr.Wang uses more protracted and complex sentences and compound sentences.Fang uses more short sentences and flexible sentence forms.Mr.Fang used more personal and accusative responses from the textual perspective,while Mr.Wang used comparative responses more frequently.In terms of reading comprehension of the discourse,Mr.Fang’s translation is simpler and easier to be understood than Mr.Wang’s.In the second place,Mr.Fang Zhong and Mr.Wang Rongpei have their own characteristics in terms of non-linguistic features.Mr.Fang’s characteristics are mainly in three aspects: firstly,his translation is generally more straightforward;secondly,he also adopts the way of cutting out non-essential historical elements in the translation to make the poem more understandable;thirdly,he adopts a flexible and varied form to express the meaning accurately and cleverly.Mr.Wang Rongpei,on the other hand,gives a more rigorous examination of the culturally loaded words.Mr.Wang’s translation achieves the effect of “conveying the spirit and meaning”,and tries to“convey the spirit” as much as possible while expressing the meaning clearly.Mr.Wang also considers the metrical and rhythmic characteristics of poetry translation and uses the metrical form to translate poetry.Mr.Fang Zhong and Mr.Wang Rongpei are paradigmatic figures in poetry translation.This paper uses a corpus research method to explore the translation styles of the two translators at the level of linguistic features and non-linguistic features.It aims to provide reference and reference for future poetry translation practice.