A Comparative Analysis Of Grammatical Metaphors In Two English Versions Of Yueyanglou Ji

Having weathered wars and political upheavals, Yueyanglou Ji is still of world renown for its exhortation that "to be the first in the country to worry about the affairs of the state and the last in the country to enjoy oneself. The wisdom implied in it was not only well received by the Chinese scholars in ancient time, but is still an ideal of modern politics. Naturally, such a great masterpiece has attracted tremendous attention of experts in the field of translation. And the great interest turns out to be the prelude to various translated English versions of Yueyanglou Ji. The two translated English versions of Yueyanglou Ji are selected from Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang and Luo Jingguo in this thesis.Contemporary world has witnessed the extensive use of Systemic Functional Grammar in the study of discourse analysis, exactly falling in line with Halliday’s original intention. Grammatical Metaphor, considered as the variation in the expression of a given meaning, is not merely a very important component of systemic functional grammar, but also a very important language phenomenon in human life. It is incongruent from the most accepted form and just falling in line with the essence of translation activities, namely an alternative form of expressions, merely in another language. On this ground, this thesis makes a detailed comparative analysis of Yueyanglou Ji, and its corresponding two translated English versions from the perspective of grammatical metaphor.To begin with, the original prose is divided into20clauses. During the course of division, it is found that14clauses realize the ideational function, and the rest6realize the interpersonal function. And then, analysis is made respectively on the transitivity systems of the14clauses by identifying the process types, the participants involved and the circumstantial elements related; and on the mood systems of the6clauses from the Chinese version, as well as those from the corresponding two translated English versions. In the end, a comparison is made between the two translated English versions of Yueyanglou Ji based on the ideational grammatical metaphor and the interpersonal grammatical metaphor successively. Hence, the conclusion is drawn that the flexible application of grammatical metaphor is instructive in translation activities.By comparing the translations via the grammatical metaphor approach, it is found that:1. Grammatical metaphor is applicable for translation studies. A thorough interpretation of the classical Chinese prose and a reasonable comparison among different English translations can be achieved by readers with the help of a proper application of grammatical metaphor. 2. Grammatical metaphor should be used to an appropriate extent. There is no such thing as a superior form when congruence and metaphor are taken into account in translation. The general feature of the source text and the specific artistic conception embodied can be realized to the greatest extent in the target text, as long as the suitable time of grammatical metaphor application is identified by the translator.3. Grammatical metaphor is featured in Chinese-English translations. A flexible transference from the two languages makes it possible that meaning and conception of the source text are maintained in translated works.