A Comparative Study Of Three English Versions Of Chang Hen Ge From Sociosemiotic Perspective

Chang Hen Ge, as Bai Juyi's masterpiece, stands for very high artistic value in terms of the theme, language, content expression and artistic quality. With the development of cultural exchanges, the translation of Chang Hen Ge and relevant studies on its translation have been further pushed forward. Many scholars in translation studies are also engaged in this wave, and have focused on appreciation and evaluation on versions of this poem, but most are from the aesthetic perspective, and few from the point view of sociosemiotics. This thesis, by employing the criterion of sociosemiotic approach"correspondence in meaning and similarity in function"advocated by Professor Chen Hongwei, makes a comparative study on the three versions of Chang Hen Ge, respectively rendered by Giles, Yang Xianyi & Dai Naidie and Xu Yuanchong, and gives the author's reevaluation on these versions.According to sociosemiotic approach, translation as a transformation between two sign systems in social cultural context, is a cross-language and cross-cultural communication. Among various sign systems used by human, language is the most comprehensive and complex one. Meaning and function are the intrinsic natures of any sign system as well as any text type. Translation is translating meaning, the transference of meaning is to actualize function. The distinction of sociosemiotic meanings originates from Morris'triadic dimension: referential meaning, linguistic meaning and pragmatic meaning. Referential meaning is built on the relation of signs to their referents, linguistic meaning is built on the relation of signs to each other within the same sign system, and pragmatic meaning is built on the relationship of the sign and its interpretant. Meanwhile, Newmark's classification of language functions is adopted, the six types of functions served by language are as follows: informative, expressive, vocative, aesthetic, phatic and metalingual functions. As for the evaluation on translated versions, the reproduction of meanings and functions in the target language determines the quality of translation. Based on the criterion of"correspondence in meaning and similarity in function", this thesis makes an objective analysis of the reproduction of sociosemiotic meanings and functions in the three versions, and assesses the inappropriateness with respect to the referential meaning with the corresponding informative function, the linguistic meaning and pragmatic meaning with the corresponding expressive and aesthetic functions. However, the defects do not outweigh the merits. In the process of the comparative study, the dual opposition between bad or good translation should be discarded while the motivations behind this translation phenomenon is well worth investigation. The thesis holds that it is impossible to reproduce the equivalent meaning and function in the target language due to the great differences between the two cultures, methods of adaptation and compensation like annotation, contextual amplification, generalization and shift of perspective are indispensable to transfer the most important meanings and functions of paramount importance. The reproduction of text type is determined by the realization of meanings and functions, and the styles of different translators get sociosemiotic reconsideration as well. Based on the comparative study of the three versions, the author holds that for the translation of Chang Hen Ge, prose translation and verse translation should make up for each other's deficiencies in order to reproduce the sociosemiotic meanings and realize the similarity of relevant functions.Owing to the holistic features of sociosemiotic approach to translation, the comparative study of the versions has great advantage. The criterion of sociosemiotic approach provides a comprehensive and objective angle for translation criticism, and is instructive for the development of translation theory and practice as well.