A Study On The English Translation Of Hmong's 'jax Lil' Under The Functional Equivalence Theory

Hmong's ‘jax lil' has been circulating for a long time in central dialect area of Hmong's language,such as Taijiang,Jianhe,Huangping,Shibing,Zhenyuan,Fuquan,Kaili,Danzhai,Majiang,Rongjiang,Congjiang,Liping,Sandu,Duyun of Guizhou Province,and in Rongshui,Sanjiang of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.It is the most classic integration of historical and cultural memory in the Hmong area.‘Jax lil' contains an extensive and profound content about Hmong's creation myths,ethnic legends,pedigrees,knowledge and skills,religious beliefs,folklore and etiquette,ethics and morality,litigation rhetoric and typical cases.It has important historical data value and research value in various disciplines.The collection,translation and collation works of ‘jax lil' started from 1959,and there have been 27 publications or documents about it.Documentation work has made people gradually understand the "jax lil",promoted its protection and inheritance,and also provided an important basis for the study of "Miao Rationale"("jax lil").Due to the attention of the government and academia,"jax lil" was declared and selected into the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list in 2008 in the category of "folk literature".The research on "jax lil" began in the mid-1980 s.As for the research results,they mainly focus on philosophy,linguistics,literature,law,sociology,culture and other disciplines.However,there is no significant achievement in the English translation of it.The only English translation of Hmong's literature available is‘Hmong Oral Epic',translated by Mark Bender,an American scholar,which has been rendered in both Chinese and English versions.The translators of ‘Hmong Oral Epic'have adopted literal translation,free translation,transliteration and annotation as translation methods,which gives the author a great inspiration to translate ‘jax lil' on her own.Therefore,the English translation of the ‘jax lil' mentioned in this dissertation will introduce the translation methods and analysis of ‘Hmong Oral Epic'.The ‘jax lil',collected,collated and translated by Wu Dekun and Wu Dejie,is themost representative of the relevant literature.Hu Xiaodong re-categorized this version of 'jax lil',and then translated it into Chinese and edited ‘Jax Lil Interpretation' after annotations.In this dissertation,the author selected the second part of Chapter 6 "Divine Judgment" in Hu Xiaodong's ‘Jax Lil Interpretation' as the source language text.Because this part is related to the Hmong's system of divine judgment,the author can compare it with the western system of divine judgment from a cross-cultural perspective.In addition,in terms of the choice of methods in the study of English translation,the author adopts Eugene A.Nida's functional equivalence theory to translate ‘jax lil' into English,and makes an analysis of the contents of the self-translation.Functional equivalence theory is a translation theory that emphasizes the transmission of the meaning of the source language culture and the correspondence in understanding between the target language reader and the source language reader.It serves as a theoretical basis for the translation of the Hmong rhetoric and can better convey the Hmong culture-loaded information of the text to the readers.This dissertation is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is an introduction,which briefly summarizes the current situation of the study of ‘jax lil',introduces the selected corpus,and expounds the significance of the study of English translation of‘jax lil'.The second chapter is a detailed introduction to the background of the research on the English translation of ‘jax lil'.It mainly summarizes the current situation of the research on the English translation of Hmong literature,briefly analyses the English version of Hmong Oral Epic and puts forward its reference significance.The third chapter is a theoretical framework of the English translation of‘jax lil'.By comparing the Western and Miao's(or Hmong's)lexis,this research expounds the feasibility of functional equivalence theory as an English translation strategy of ‘jax lil'.The fourth chapter is the self-translation part of ‘jax lil'.It mainly carries out the English translation of ‘jax lil' from the perspectives of lexical equivalence,syntactic equivalence,text equivalence and stylistic equivalence,and analyses the translation results.The fifth chapter is the conclusion of this dissertation,which summuarizes the feasibility and results of the English translation of "Hmong'sjas lil" that based on the theory of functional equivalence.This study is a supplement to the field of English translation of Hmong literature and a practice of disseminating excellent minority culture in China.As it is theoretically grounded and practically feasible,it can be reproduced.Therefore,it will be of significance to the study of English translation of other minorities' literature.