A Study Of Cultural Identity Theories And Principles For Translating Chinese Songs Into English And Czech

Songs are part of our everyday life.They help us preserve memories,accompany important events in our lives,and teach us to understand different cultures.As an essential part of culture,songs play a unique role in culture,such as religious activities,local customs,or traditions of a specific area.Song translation entails conveying all the information contained in rhymed,rhythmic pieces of art from one language and culture into completely different languages and cultures.It is a demanding task,which involves language ability,feeling for music,and adequate knowledge of the target culture.Due to cultural gaps between China and the West,there are only a few pieces of Chinese music widely known in Western countries,and just a handful of professional translators or scholars dealing with this complex task of translating Chinese songs into western languages.The issue of translating songs is one of the rare examples of a field opened for research within translation studies.Comprehensive studies of this issue exist in the Western tradition,but systematic studies looking into Chinese-English and Chinese-Czech translations of Chinese songs are rare.It is therefore of great necessity and significance for scholars on translation studies in China to explore and enrich this field with new theories and principles.In this thesis,I introduce three theories on song translation developed by three scholars,i.e.a Christiane Nord,Peter Alan Low,or Yubin Qian.Their theories are used to find out whether there is a difference between translations from Chinese into foreign languages performed by a Chinese and those by a non-Chinese national.This study devotes a section to an endeavor to ascertain whether there are any similarities among song translations by Chinese nationals.This comparative section is written by drawing on a theory of Chineseness introduced by Martha P.Y.Cheung.The non-Chinese groups consist of translators from the USA and the Czech Republic.There are a few publications or theses on the subject of Chinese-English song translation.The present study is the first attempt to explore the subject Chinese-Czech song translation.Because China is rapidly becoming an important business partner of the Czech Republic,I believe it is necessary to build a bridge for dialogue between the two countries,and song translation as an important part of cross-cultural communication can indeed serve as such a bridge.The first chapter of this thesis presents abrief introduction to song translation as well as a discussion of the notion of "Chineseness",which is crucial for this thesis,and I raise two research questions.The second chapter presents a brief history of song translation in China and abroad.As there are few publications on this subject in English or Czech,I look into the translation of poems,which is to a certain extent the same as song translation.The third chapter discusses the three afore-mentioned theories of translation which I draw on in the fifth chapter.They are Nord's translation theory,Low's Pentathlon Principle,and Qian's 3S Principle.The fourth chapter discusses the practical issue of song translation.Methods of qualitative research by Corbin and Strauss are used to explore the subject of song translation.The data obtained for this study are presented and analyzed in this chapter.The fifth chapter consists of a summary of the major findings and limitations of this study and a conclusion,as well as some suggestions for further research.