A Study On The English Translation Of Dgeldan Gnomic Verses From The Perspective Of Tytler’s Three Principles Of Translation

Gnomic verse, a kind of literature of Tibetan classics, became popular in the thirteenth century. It is famous at all times for its rich and unique allegories as well as its profound and enlightened philosophy. Dgeldan Gnomic Verses is one of the representatives among them. The author Sonam Drakpa used a large amount of words to create the images of sages and fools from different aspects so as to guide people to distinguish the wise and the fools and teach people to emulate those who are better than themselves. As a result, Dgeldan Gnomic Verses has a precious literary value and a universal social value as well.Tytler’s three principles of translation is one of the most representative translation theories. However, it is a pity that no previous researchers analyze the English translation of Dgeldan Gnomic Verses under Tytler’s three principles of translation. This thesis adopts the method of textual analysis, illustration and inductive research to analyze the characteristics of the English translation of gnomic verses under the guidance of this translation theory, and tries to fill the gap in the field of translation study to provide an exemplification of English translation in gnomic verses. That is also the original intention and innovation of this thesis.The thesis falls into three chapters. Introduction makes a summation about the life story of Sonam Drakpa; the translation versions of Dgeldan Gnomic Verses; a literature review of previous study of Dgeldan Gnomic Verses and a brief introduction to Tytler’s three principles of translation. Chapter One examines whether the English version is in accordance with the first principle of translation by analyzing the translation of rhetorical devices and culture-loaded words. Chapter Two discusses the reproduction of poetic form, rhyme scheme and solemnity in the English version. And then Chapter Three studies the translation of idiomatic expressions, natural word order and diction to see whether and how the English version has an equal ease of the source text. The thesis comes to the conclusion that in the real translation practice, these three translation principles should be combined together and the translator ought to select the proper principle and translation strategies to adjust different translation requests.