Studies Of Jing Ye Si And Its Six Translated Versions From The Perspective Of Systemic Functional Linguistics

Jing Ye Si, composed by the poet Li Bai in Tang Dynasty, is a widely known poem in China and it also has been translated into more than thirty English versions, which is very popular for its simplicity and profoundness. Literature review indicates that Jing Ye Si and its translations have been widely researched from various aspects with plentiful and substantial achievements. Some studied it from aesthetics appreciation, some from the aspect of the imagery conveyance, some focused on how to keep the rhyme of the original in translation and some others paid much more attention to the relevant background of the original poem or poet than the poem itself. These studies emphasized the importance of deep understanding before translation. The author sorts out these aspects and finds out that most of these previous studies are carried out from the perspective of literary appreciation or literary translation, and turn out to be pretty much subjective since they are based on the subjectivity of the researchers, and they are deficient in systematicity and operability.Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), as a general linguistics, one of its functions is to provide a theoretical framework to analyze texts. Especially the theories of Three Metafunctions (the Ideational Function, the Interpersonal Function and the Textual Function) of language in SFL turn out to be an effective device to analyze texts. For example: the experiences of human beings can be classified into six types of processes by analyzing their transitivity system of the ideational function; to identify the identity, status and motivations of a speaker via investigating the interpersonal function; to make clear how a text is organized through probing into its textual function.Ancient Chinese Poetry (ACP) and its translated English versions fall into the category of texts. This thesis attempts to probe into the study of ACP translation from the perspective of Halliday's SFL. The author compares and analyzes the poem Jing Ye Si and its six translated versions from two aspects: its ideational function (mainly the transitivity system) and textual function (mainly the theme and rhyme, cohesion). The translated versions could be evaluated by analyzing and comparing their experimental functions in the original and translated texts. Under the framework of SFL, this study possesses the qualities of objective and operative, in this respect, this study could be a beneficial supplement to the previous studies.