A Comparative Study On The Translation Of Allusion In Tang Poetry

Filled with traditional Chinese cultural elements, allusions are found abundantly employed in Tang poetry to make it flourish with cultural heritage. Therefore, this study on allusion translation in Tang poetry not only serves researches on Chinese classical literary translation as a catalyst but also provides cultural intercommunication with an effective way worth considering.This study selects as research subject the eighty three Tang poems translated by Bynner and Xu Yuanchong respectively, based on which self-built parallel corpora are built, namely, XYZTP and BWTP which consist of texts written in Chinese alongside the two English translations. Totally 124 allusions in the original poems are picked out manually and classified into four categories according to their different sources for further comparison and analysis on the translation strategies adopted by the two translators.45 samples of allusion translation will be selected at random from the two versions respectively for analysis. Finally, the paper concludes that there are similarities and divergences between translation strategies adopted by Bynner and Xu for allusions in Tang poetry.After a thorough and detailed analysis this research indicates that when translating allusions related to traditional Chinese culture the two translators adopt strategies of domestication and foreignization. However, the two translators’ tendencies of translation strategy differ from each other. The finding of this study is proved valid by the chi-square test.