Speech Corpus-based Prosodic Phonology Study On Chang Sheng Dian And Its English Versions

As one of Chinese greatest four classics operas,Chang Sheng Dian has become one of the traditional opera in Kun Opera and Peking Opera,with its high artistic attainments.In retrospect,previous studies on Chang Sheng Dian mainly focus on its theme or creation significance.Even though there are several studies on its translation,they always pay attention to translation strategies or the aesthetic reproduction.As for drama translation,previous studies often concentrate on literal equivalence,pragmatic factors in discourses or culture comparisons,while the combination with prosodic phonology has been neglected,which is the key feature that guarantees the performability of drama.Thus,this research investigates the prosodic and dramatic characteristics of Chang Sheng Dian and its two English versions with the selected discourses of the three major roles in the drama: Sheng-Emperor Tang,Dan-Lady Yang and Chou-Gao Lishi in chapters The Pledge and The Alarm,within the theoretical and methodological framework of prosodic phonology.It is intended to find which version displays the prosodic and dramatic features better and which is more appropriate for stage performance,analyze the effects of prosodic features on characterization;thus to build up a prosodic phonological evaluation system for drama translation studies.To make this research as objective as possible,we carry out a corpus–driven investigation of Chang Sheng Dian,written by Hong Sheng,and its two influential English versions translated by Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang(Yang‘s version),Xu Yuanchong & Frank M.Xu(Xu‘s version)respectively as research corpora.Duration,pitch and intensity are chosen as parameters to compare the source text and target texts.The speech synthesis is accomplished with the assistance of Inter Phonic 6.0,to transform texts into audio files;then Praat 6.0 is employed to collect automatically the data of duration,minimum pitch,maximum pitch,average pitch,minimum intensity,maximum intensity etc.As a data-driven study,this research focuses on differences shown in data analysis that guide the focus in detailed investigation and all comparisons between the source text and target texts are constructed on the basis of it.A prosodic phonological evaluation system is established.As is shown in the research results:(1)Yang‘s translations are relatively shorter than Xu‘s,though some shorter and appropriate clauses also appear in Xu‘s version.Taking duration into consideration,Yang‘s version is better for the sake of stage performance with more sentences sharing similar duration with Chinese original,better displaying the characteristics and emotion of the three major roles.Therefore,it would be wise to modify Yang‘s version with more better translated sentences of Xu‘ version at the same time for performance of stage.(2)As for pitch,it is found that the pitch of Xu‘s version owns fluctuations with larger gaps.In other words,minimum pitch of Xu‘s version are lower than Yang‘s,and maximum pitch of Xu‘s version are higher than Yang‘s.This will make the performance in Xu‘s version with more changes in pitch,more attractive to audience and better displaying the emotion of roles,but also take difficulty to actors and actresses in performing with big range of pitch in discourses in short time.(3)In terms of intensity,because of the inherent differences between Chinese and English,both of the two English versions own minimum intensity much weaker than Chinese original with similar maximum intensity.Most of minimum intensities of the two English versions are only one third or half of Chinese original text.If we must choose a better one for performance,Yang‘ s version may be more appropriate from the perspective of intensity with more similar intensity with Chinese original and more changes in intensity.(4)In the perspective of reconstructing characters,Yang‘s version is more consistent with the Chinese original while Xu‘s version has internal consistency in discourses of different roles.Both of them do well in reconstructing the major roles‘ images.With the framework of prosodic phonology,the research establishes corpora and investigates prosodic and dramatic features in classical Chinese opera Chang Sheng Dian.It is of much value to translation studies and dissemination of traditional Chinese culture.