Intertextuality Based Poetry Translation

Translation is viable to be seen as a type of transferring activity with intertextual features. Any text, literal or non-literal, fails to be transferred in isolation. Every text contains the existence of other texts. Therefore, a large amount of relevant knowledge is needed to comprehend and render the text precisely. Differences between source language readers and target language readers lie not only in languages they use but also in cultural background, experience and knowledge. Texts that source language readers are able to understand sometimes bring obstacles to target language readers’ understanding. Intertextuality theory offers significant theoretical foundation to meet the challenge.Intertextuality is first brought up by Julia Kristeva. She states that any text fiction non-fiction is an assimilation and transition of other texts. After Kristeva, a great number of scholars such as Roland Barthes, Gerard Genette, Hatim and Mason and Fairclough propose their own opinions about intertextuality. This thesis takes Fairclough’s views as the theoretical framework and classifies intertextuality into two types. One is manifest intertextuality including quotation, parody and allusion. The other one is constitutive intertextuality including thematic intertextuality, structural intertextuality and functional intertextuality.. It emphasizes on different translation approaches employed to reproduce intertextuality in the target text with examples from Guo Moruo’s, Huang Kesun’s and Huang Gaoxin’s versions of The Rubaiyat. This thesis is meant to shed a new light on poetry translation and facilitate translation practice.First of all, this thesis gives a brief introduction to the development of Chinese translation of English verses. Then it reviews studies on intertextuality in literary and translation studies. In the field of literary studies, it mainly introduces viewpoints of Bakhtine, Kristeva and Genette. In the field of translation studies, this thesis focuses on the theories of Hatim and Mason, Luo Xuanmin and Fairclough.In the following chapter, this thesis introduces Fairclough’s terms of manifest intertextuality and constitutive intertextuality but sub-classifies them differently. That is, this thesis sub-classifies manifest intertextuality into quotation, allusion and parody and manifestation forms into structural intertextuality, thematic intertextuality and functional intertextuality.The major findings of case studies are the most valuable part of the thesis. Guo Moruo’s, Huang Kesun’s and Huang Gaoxin’s versions of The Rubaiyat are used to analyze translation approaches that are employed to transfer manifest intertextuality including quotation, allusion and parody and constitutive intertextuality including structural intertextuality, thematic intertextuality and functional intertextuality and is meant to contributes to the translation studies as well as translation practice.