A Study Of Chinese Translation Of The Pilgrim's Progress From Intertextual Perspective

John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come (1678),one of the English classics and a Christian work,claims a book only secondary to the Holy Bible still in print.Since its publication,it was translated into more than 200 languages and even translated into modern English to readers in the 21^st century.In 1851,the extraction of The Pilgrim's Progress was translated into Chinese by overseas Chinese missionary. William Chalmers Burns(1815-1868).This version is an extraction version(撮译本); in1853,it was translated into easy classical Chinese,and became the first western novel translated into Chinese.In the past one and a half centuries,there are about more than 50 Chinese versions and all kinds of rewritings.It illustrates the high intertextuality between The Pilgrim's Progress and King James Version of the Holy Bible,and reveals the parallel pattern in their translation history in China.Restricted by the author of The Pilgrim's Progress in cultural status. creation aim,language style and text intertextuality,the translator is constrained by King James Version of the Bible and Protestant Christian system of discourse. Referring to four Chinese versions(Four versions:Zia,Z.K.'s version in 1936,Zheng Xirong's version,in 2006,Xi Hai's version,in 1997,Wang Hanchuan's version,in 2003),this thesis studies translation principles and possible issues from the perspective of intertextuality,The Pilgrim's Progress I is mainly studied in this paper,which consists of five parts.The first part is an introduction,followed by a literary review in the second part. The third part illustrates the place of Chinese translation of The Pilgrim's Progress in translation history of China,and the fourth part is an analysis of Chinese translation of The Pilgrim's Progress from intertextual perspective.The fifth part concludes the thesis.The author,based on an analysis of examples of translation from four Chinese versions of The Pilgrim's Progress from the intertextual perspective,works out six principles in guiding the translation of the novel.The principles are:a.Copying King James Bible;b.Referring to Chinese Christian style of discourse;c.Principle of priority of semantic agreement to biblical allusions;d.Principle of reference of the Bible serving for its context;e.Principle of necessary notes to the translation:f. Making a balance between bible-orientation and literature-orientation.These principles provide theoretical direction for translation study of The Pilgrim "s Progress. There were theoretical meaning and practical value in this study.