A Study On The English Version Of The Sequel To The Classic Of Tea-from The Perspective Of Sociosemiotics

Tea classics are the core of Chinese traditional tea culture and thus distinguish themselves as the precise spiritual wealth for the Chinese and the whole world as well. Cultural communication and translation have always been inseparably related. In the era when cultural diversity has become a prevailing trend, rendering tea classics into English plays an irreplaceable role in introducing and spreading Chinese traditional tea culture to the world. Currently, the translation process is beginning to take shape and the relevant research is still in its infancy.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. Therefore, it occupies an important position among modern translation theories. 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 "corresponding in meaning and similarity in function", stressing that both verbal and nonverbal signs contribute to the formation of textual meaning and translation process as well. To a big degree, this theory liberates translation from the restriction of "equivalence" and offers us a relatively objective and comprehensive criterion of translation researches. The Sequel to The Classic of Tea is a science classic, and it demonstrates distinctive literary characteristics, thus being characterized by its various meanings. So we can apply sociosemiotic approach into the translation of the classic to unearth all kinds of semiotic meanings in it. Based on the criterion, the paper makes contrastive analyses of the examples of referential meaning, linguistic meaning and pragmatic meaning in the original text and their English versions, trying to show the agreement between the versions, as well as their practical gains and losses. Furthermore, the paper intends to prove that sociosemiotic approach to translation is instrumentally and theoretically valuable to the translation of Chinese classics with similar genre. The final purpose of the thesis is to give some insights to the development of translation criticism and research in this field.