A Study On The English Version Of Biancheng From The Perspective Of Meaning Theory In Sociosemiotics

Biancheng is one of the most celebrated representative works of Shen Congwen and occupies a prominent place in modern Chinese literature. The novel is regarded as the "purist novel in Chinese modern literary history". In the era when cultural diversity has become a prevailing trend, rendering of the classics into English plays an irreplaceable role in introducing and spreading Chinese culture to the world.Sociosemiotic approach to translation is a relatively new research model, which offers us a different perspective with more attention paid to the objective meanings and functions of language signs. With the three semiotic meanings as its core, the theory holds that translation is translating meaning. Meaning and function are inseparable aspects of language and text. Accordingly, the criterion is "correspondence in meaning, similarity in function", stressing that both verbal and nonverbal signs contribute to the formation of textual meaning and translation process as well.With the basis of the previous studies done by many scholars, this thesis tries to apply the sociosemiotic approach into the translation studies of the classic to unearth all kinds of semiotic meanings in it. Based on the criterion, the thesis makes contrastive analysis of the examples of referential meaning, pragmatic meaning and linguistic meaning in the original text and their translated text, as well as their practical gains and losses. Furthermore, the thesis intends to prove that sociosemiotic approach to translation is instrumentally and theoretically valuable to the translation of Chinese literature classics. The final purpose of the thesis is to give some insight to the development of translation criticism and research in this field.