A Corpus-based Study Of Translation Of Terms Of Address In The Language Of Shakespeare

Terms of address, as an essential element in human communication, can never be easily translated from one language to another, so special attention is increasingly being paid to the translation of terms of address. Drama, undoubtedly, is one of the best source materials for term of address study. This thesis conducts a comparative study of translation of terms of address based on a parallel corpus of Shakespeare's seven dramas (namely, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Macbeth, Love's Labours Lost, Midsummer-Night's Dream and The Taming of the Shrew), and the Chinese versions rendered by Liang Shiqiu and Zhu Shenghao. Adopting both quantitative and qualitative methods, this thesis aims to uncover the strategies employed in translating terms of address and reasons for the possible disparity between their translations by Liang and Zhu.The translations of four types of terms of address, i.e. kinship terms, names, titles, endearments, are illustrated through the cases of uncle, Hamlet, sir and dear respectively. Through analyzing the reproduction of power and solidarity reflected in terms of address in the target language, results show that translations of terms of address by Liang and Zhu vary to some degree. Skopos theory and its coherence and fidelity rule are then used to study the difference. It is found that the disparity mainly results from the two translators'different skopos. As for translation strategies of terms of address, literal translation, transliteration, explicitness, omission, and other methods are employed by both Liang and Zhu.This corpus-based study attempts to provide a new perspective for translation studies on terms of address. Hopefully, the result could benefit further study on other aspects of terms of address.