A Study On Numerals With Semantic Fuzziness And Their Translation——a Case Study Of300Tang Poems Translated By Xu Yuanchong

In Tang dynasty, Chinese classical poems are called Tang poems, which symbolize the summit of Chinese classical poems. Tang poems are not only one of the splendid literary heritages in China, but it is also a bright pearl of the literary treasure in the world. Until now, lots of Tang poems are still widely spread. During the appreciation of Tang poems, plenty of magic use of numerals with semantic fuzziness is found. Most of fuzzy numerals play an important role in depicting images of poems. However, it also increases the difficulty of readers’understanding and translators’translating. In1975an American cyberneticist L.A.Zadeh firstly put forward the concept of fuzzy set, which signifies emergence of the fuzziness theory. The fuzziness theory has a profound significance theoretically and realistically. It does not only change the mode of thinking of human beings, but it also brings great change to a series of subjects such as mathematics, logics, etc. With the development of the study on the fuzziness theory, fuzzy linguistics also appears. In fact, the emergence of the fuzziness theory is closely related to linguistics. Although fuzzy linguistics appeared in the1970s, as a new science on fuzzy language, it breaks a new path for translation of semantically fuzzy numerals even for translation studies.In300Tang poems numerals appear390times, of which about over half of them are numerals with semantic fuzziness. The thesis is based on the English version of Professor Xu Yuanchong and the author collects210data as the research object. According to the fuzziness theory, especially semantic fuzziness and the translation principles of semantically fuzzy numerals, two research questions are involved in the thesis:The first question is whether the numerals with semantic fuzziness in the corpus can be explained, analyzed and classified from the aspect of semantic fuzziness. The second question is whether the relevant translation methods of the numerals with semantic fuzziness in the corpus can be summed up. A combination of qualitative and quantitative research is used in this thesis. By analyzing the numerals with semantic fuzziness in300Tang poems and taking others’ relevant researches into consideration, the author classifies the numerals with semantic fuzziness in the corpus into four groups (obviously fuzzy numerals, numerals related to culture and customs, numerals related to figures of speech and numerals related to fixed expressions) and concludes three translation methods (literal translation, omission, and revision). To some extent, the study can enrich the specific contents of semantic fuzziness, provide academic references for the study of semantic fuzziness of numerals and is also valuable for readers to understand English translation of numerals in Chinese poems. In addition, the author expects that conclusions of the study can also give some aid to people who tend to study and translate fuzzy numerals in Chinese poems and guide teaching in semantic fuzziness and Chinese-English translation.