A Comparative Study Of The Translation Of Mythological Elements In Five Chinese Versions Of The Celtic Twilight From The Perspective Of Thick Translation

Since the 21st century,many foreign literary works containing mythological elements have been introduced to China,but there are few studies on the translation of mythological elements.The Celtic Twilight is a collection of short essays written by William Butler Yeats,which contains many Irish myths,legends and folk tales,as well as the fantastic experiences of Yeats and other storytellers he interviewed,and Yeats’ own meditations.The mythological elements in the book include mythological figures and locations related to myths.Most of them are from Celtic myths,and a few from Christian myths,Greek myths and Roman myths.So far,there are five Chinese versions of The Celtic Twilight(Yin Gao,Wang Biying,Tian Weihua,Yan Shuang and Xu Jian’s translations).Concerning the translation of mythological elements,there are still some problems such as inconsistencies of the designations among the translations,and mistranslations and omissions within certain version.From the perspective of “thick translation”,the thesis adopts the research framework put forward by Li Yan,a Chinese scholar,and carries out a research with descriptive translation methods from two aspects: thick translation in the main text,and that in the paratext,aiming to summarize the specific translation strategies of the mythological elements in the five Chinese versions of The Celtic Twilight.The research shows that thick translation in the main text is mainly presented as the translation of Realia,including four strategies: transcription,literal translation,approximate translation and descriptive translation.In the paratext,there is only one strategy,contextual translation,which is presented in four aspects: information on the book covers,introductions in the prefaces and postscripts,annotations of mythological elements,and illustrations.As a literary translation method,thick translation provides the translator with more freedom to make interpretations in the target text.The translator is recommended to acquire the background knowledge of the mythological elements,grasp their connotative and affective meanings,and avoid using words which may cause controversies,as well as mistranslations and omissions.Based on the implementation of thick translation in all the five Chinese versions,the meanings of the mythological elements are better conveyed in Yin,Wang,and Xu’s versions because of the large numbers of annotations and rich background introductions in the prefaces and postscripts.The introductions in Tian’s preface are too general to provide enough information of the mythological elements in the book.The absence of the preface,postscript,annotations and illustrations in Yan’s version may make it hard for the target readers,especially those who have little knowledge about the mythological elements in the book,to grasp their meanings accurately.This thesis expands the scope of translation studies on Yeats’ works,and sheds some lights on the translation of mythological elements.