A Comparative Study On The Metaphor Translation Of Birch's And Wang's Versions Of The Peony Pavilion

The Peony Pavilion is the most renowned chuanqi drama created by Tang Xianzu, the Chinese dramatist,and stands as a flower in the Chinese drama history.It has been performed for countless times on China's stage since it came into being.So far,there have already been several English versions.Current study on its English versions mainly focuses on the structure and features of their language.However,metaphor,as a rhetorical device,has seldom been studied on an objective,scientific and statistical basis. Besides,since the English versions of The Peony Pavilion,were published,studies on their metaphor translation on a quantitative basis can hardly be found.Based on Newmark's classification on metaphor translation strategy,this paper is an attempt to study the metaphor translation in Birch's and Wang's English versions with a self-built parallel corpus on the basis of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis.Through comparing the differences in structure,image,etc between the SL and the TL,the author of the thesis analyzes the reasons and puts forward some advice on some ways of metaphor translation in drama.Therefore,it is expected to serve as a reference and guidance for the future study on metaphor translation.The major findings can be summarized as follows:1.When dealing with metaphor translation,the dominant translation strategy that Birch adopts is retaining the same metaphor in the TT.2.The major strategy that Wang Rongpei adopts is converting the metaphor into sense.3.With the purpose of being faithful to the original text,Birch makes every effort to retain the original image of the metaphor and keeps the beautiful and unique exotic flavor.4.Wang Rongpei sets the goal of "vivid in description and faithful in meaning" and interprets the meaning of the image of metaphor to help the TR overcome cultural barrier and facilitate their understanding and ensure the appeal of his translation.