Study On Translation Of Manifest Intertextuality In Mudan Ting

"Intertextuality" was first proposed as a text theory by French literary critic, semiotician Kristeva in 1960s. In a much broader sense, intertextuality refers to the way in which any text absorbs or transforms another. Any text is therefore constructed as a mosaic of quotations, which breaks down the long-standing notion held that text is self-reliant. And the full signification of the text could only be sensed through their referencing or evocation of other texts. In a narrow sense, intertextuality refers to the interdependent ways in which texts stand in relation to one another. Norman Fairclough, one of the founders of critical discourse analysis, used the term "manifest intertextuality" to describe the intertextual relationships on the level of primary texts, and allusion, parody and quotation are commonly-known forms of manifest intertextuality.Due to the fact that intertextual reference constitutes real challenges to translators in practice, plus the awareness of the affinity between this notion and translation studies, applying intertextuality theory into translation studies is not only operable but also necessary. In this thesis, the author will explore the relation between intertextuality theory and translation studies; study the transfer of manifest intertextual references in literary works in attempts to summarize the translation strategies of achieving manifest intertextuality in the literary translation.Combining a theoretical and an empirical approach, the author of the thesis discussed the connection between intertextuality and translation studies and adopted a comparative method in the text analysis, aiming to examine the transfer of manifest intertextuality in Mudan Ting. As a classical opera written by Tang Xianzu (1550-1616), Mudan Ting is of great literary value. This masterpiece is richly embedded with allusions, quotations and parodies, thus featuring strong intertextuality both in language and culture, bringing extreme difficulties for the text translation. The author of this thesis will analyze the source text specifically from the perspective of manifest intertextuality under three main categories:allusion, quotation and parody, and compare the two English versions of Mudan Ting conducted by Cyril Birch and Wang Rongpei respectively. The author of the thesis chose these two versions because they are most welcomed and widely distributed in both English-and Chinese- speaking countries.Through a theoretical exploration and text analysis, the author of this thesis holds that translation activity is intertextual by nature and the way in which the translator deals with manifest intertextual references could impact the translation quality significantly. Through a comparative study of the two English versions of Mudan Ting, the author concludes that Birch's version is literally faithful to the original, in which a word-for-word translation strategy is preferred; Wang's version is semantically accurate and coherent, and a sense-for-sense translation strategy is adopted. It is thus proved that an intertextual perspective of translation studies is insightful and worth developing on both a theoretical and practical level.