A Socio-pragmatic Perspective On Chinese Translation Of T/V Usage In Much Ado About Nothing

T/V have been a hot topic for foreign scholars to study Shakespeare's dramas.However,current researches on this aspect in China have not received enough attention.Based on the theory of politeness(Brown&Gilman 1989),this thesis combines FTA theory to study T/V and their translation in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing(MAAN),and to analyze the social pragmatic factors reflected on different translations.This thesis is using qualitative research as the type of research.The author looks through the socio-pragmatic characteristics of T/V in English in MAAN and their Chinese translations based on the preceding researches,then aims to explore the aspects of T and V in English and Chinese in practical use of the language through contrastive analysis of the pragmatic characteristics of the two,particularly focusing on the aspects of power,distance and ranked extremity.At the end of this study,it is found that there are three words as the representations of the second person pronouns.They are:thou,thee,and you.The manipulation of those second person pronouns shows the politeness.Translation of these second person singular pronouns are:ni,nin,omission,and others(e g.dianxia,laoxiong,niziji,and laoye).The three variables(i.e.power,distance,and extremity)in the thesis determines the different usages and translation of T/V.Results show that V is translated into nin by Zhu Shenghao when the speaker expresses his or her negative politeness,and ni when the speaker adopts positive politeness.T is translated into ni by Zhu no matter which politeness strategy is adopted.Omission and replacement are also found in Zhu Shenghao's translation version,which is approved in Chinese because repetition is avoided as a result,and replacement can achieve the contextual meaning of the original text.