A Contrastive Study Of Three English Versions Of Chang Hen Ge

The term “intertextuality” refers to the relationship between texts. This conceptreceived high attention among scholars since it was first introduced by the French criticJulia Kristeva in the1960s. In her view,“Any text is constructed as mosaic ofquotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another.”(Kristeva,1980:66) The intertextual approach not only provides social and cultural significance in TextTheory, and also a new viewpoint in translation, thus it is feasible to applyintertextuality to translation studies. This thesis attempts to explore the translation ofclassical Chinese poetry from an intertextual perspective, with Chang Hen Ge as a casestudy.Poetry is always considered as the treasure of a culture and essence of a language.The classical Chinese poetry has immense influence on poetry worldwide. With itscondensed artistic form, rich images, and abundant cultural connotation, it alwaysprovides readers with great room of association with fewest words. The intertextualitypenetrates into allusions, images and sound systems contribute a lot to the creation ofclassical Chinese poetry. However, the intertextual signs bring many complications anddifficulties for translation. Thus the translation of classical Chinese poetry turns out tobe a tough task for translators. Only when intertextuality in poetry being fullyunderstood and effectively interpreted can we further expand and boost culturalexchange.Chang Hen Ge is a long narrative poem written by Bai Juyi, a famous poet in TangDynasty. Thanks to the debut of Chang Hen Ge’s English version in1901, overseasreaders can have a chance to appreciate the charm of this poem. Recently, research onChang Hen Ge’s English versions takes on the trend of accelerating development.However, studies from the perspective of intertextuality are quite rare. This thesisattempts to do a contrastive analysis of Chang Hen Ge’s three English versions by W.Fletcher, Xu Yuanzhong, Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang in perspective of intertextuality.Two kinds of research methodologies are adopted in this thesis. First, a contrastiveanalysis is used in the main body of this thesis. Three English versions of Chang HenGe will be analyzed from three aspects: allusions, images and sound systems, followedby a brief criticism on each version, thus verifying the importance of intertextuality inpoetry translation. Second, this thesis will apply qualitative and quantitative analysis.Computer software Concordance3.3and NLPIR are used to present statistics on wordfrequency for the purpose of getting a clear and convincing data of three Englishversions on lexical level.The thesis has five parts.The first part is introduction, describing the research background, significance andthe organization of this thesis.Chapter One reviews the previous studies on the English translation of classicalChinese poetry as well as the English translation of Chang Hen Ge.Chapter Two introduces the origin, establishment and development of theintertextuality theory, which function as a theoretical framework for the followingdiscussion. The relationship between intertextuality and poetry translation and thetranslation of intertextual signs will also be presented in this part.Chapter Three gives an introduction of Chang Hen Ge and its author Bai Juyi,followed by a contrastive study of three English versions of Chang Hen Ge from threeaspects: allusions, images and sound systems.The last part presents the conclusion. The classical Chinese poetry has abundantintertextual reference. Because of the different environment and cultural background,translators will have discrepancy in understanding intertextual signs, thus leading to adiversity of translation strategies. According to the results of computer software,Fletcher uses the most complex and diverse vocabulary in his translation, he also makesa lager amount of explanations by adding notes; Xu Yuanzhong’s version has the mostcondensed poetic form and fancy language, his translation is the closest to an Englishverse; while Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang’ joint translation have neither strict structure nor difficult expressions, their version is the most formal one. Generallyspeaking, W. Fletcher focuses on the target readers’ reception; he omits manyintertextual signs by adding similar expressions which can be accepted by targetlanguage readers. Xu Yuanzhong is in favor of free translation and adopts his theory of“Beauties in sound, form and sense” at the same time. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yanguse literal translation with simple and plain language. They try to preserve the originaltaste of this poem. As a translator, the first step is to read a lot of relevant material to thesource text, and familiarize with the intertextual relevance between source text and itspre-existing text. The next step is to rewrite the intertextual text in order to make thetarget language readers get the same intertextual information as source language readers.The intertextuality theory provides new viewpoint in poetry translation and deservesfurther studies.