A Corpus-Assisted Study On The Appellations’ Translation In The Peony Pavilion

The Peony Pavilion is a classic of Chinese literature, written by Tang Xianzu, a distinguished dramatist in the Ming dynasty. Most of the researchers mainly studied such aspects as structure, style and ideology of the play, but few researchers have devoted themselves into the study of the appellations. This study analyzes this aspect of Wang Rongpei’s translated version. With the help of the parallel corpus, the author attempts to make a detailed comparison between the Chinese and the English versions and to conduct an analysis by adopting quantitative and qualitative methods.Due to the great cultural differences, the Chinese appellation system varies from the English one in some aspects. In Wang’s version, he does not follow a word-for-word translation pattern, but tries to achieve the objective of "vivid in description and faithful in meaning". With the flexible transition of the different appellations, his version deserves to be called a recreation of the original charm. After the comprehensive analysis of the translation of the appellations in this text, the author has reached the following conclusions:Firstly, the appellations can be mainly divided into two categories:the kinship appellations and the social appellations. As for the translation of the appellations in The Peony Pavilion, Wang chiefly employs three methods:corresponding translation, conversion of different cases and the compensatory method of omission, under the guidance of dynamic equivalence theory and compensatory translation theory.Secondly, the Chinese appellation system is extremely huge and complicated. The same appellation adopted by different addressers may express diverse meanings and feelings; while, different appellations used by different people on special occasions may refer to the same addressee. Wang Rongpei flexibly changes his translation strategies in line with the specific addresser and the context, in order to reveal the attractive flavor and charm of the original version to the target readers and cultures.