On The Translation Of Shanghai Image In The Song Of Everlasting Sorrow Based On Transitivity System

Chang Hen Ge,one of the representative works of Wang Anyi,was translated into English as The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan in2008.After its publication,it has been widely reported and highly appraised by mainstream media because the translators not only keep loyal to the original text,but also take into consideration the target language features and target readers' reading habits,making Shanghai image more vivid and easier to understand.This study investigates the English translation of Shanghai image based on the Chinese-English parallel corpus of The Song of Everlasting Sorrow from the perspective of transitivity system,by adopting both qualitative and quantitative methods.The thesis firstly reviews previous studies on English translation of The Song of Everlasting Sorrow,followed by an introduction to transitivity system as well as its connection with image construction.Secondly,this study collects all “……?……?”and “……?……” sentence patterns,discusses the process types they belong to,and summarizes Shanghai image constructed by these patterns.Thirdly,the English translations of “……?……?” and “……?……” patterns are analyzed in terms of translation methods,which reveals the translators' specific approaches in dealing with process types,thus resulting in a reconstructed Shanghai image different from that in the original version.Finally,reasons are analyzed from two aspects: translator's subjectivity and reader's receptive function.The findings show that the types of transitivity process presented by “……?……?” and “……?……” patterns have changed a lot after translation.Critical language is greatly reduced,because the translators have not involved much subjective feelings into translation and usually use verbs to translate the two patterns,showing the developing process of things to readers directly.Therefore,the objective and dynamic nature of the image is enhanced,and Shanghai image tends to be three-dimensional,which is more specific and dynamic.