Abstract

In the translation field of modern society, scholars have made many beneficial comments on English translation of ancient Chinese poetry. However, they have yet reached an agreement on evaluation standard. Traditionally, translation researches are often based on literary criticism to evaluate translation versions. These years, with the development of linguistic research, linguistic theories are gradually integrated into translation studies. As an important theory of systemic functional linguistics, the theory of thematic structure is applied to translation researches. However, it is not widely used in the analysis of English translation of ancient Chinese poems. Therefore, this thesis decides to base on the theory of thematic structure and analyze the Chinese poem “The Wandering Son’s Song” (《游子吟》) as well as its seven English versions. By comparing and analyzing the differences and similarities of their theme-rheme structures between different English versions and the original Chinese version, this thesis will discuss the differences of effects caused by different theme-rheme structures and expects to provide practical references for English translation of ancient Chinese poetry from a new perspective.

Key words: theme, rheme, thematic structure, translation
 
摘要

对于中国古诗英译，当今译界学者已经做出了许多有益的讨论，但并未得出统一的评价标准。传统翻译研究通常从文学批评的角度出发，对译文的价值进行评估。近年来，随着语言学研究的发展，语言学理论逐渐与翻译研究结合。作为系统功能语言学的重要理论之一，主位结构理论也不断用于翻译研究，但其在中国古诗英译分析中的应用还不多见。因此，本文选择从主位结构理论入手，对中国古诗《游子吟》原文及搜集的七个英文译文的主述位结构进行对比分析，比较不同英文译文之间及其与原文的异同，探讨主述位结构不同造成的译文效果上的差异。希望本文的分析结果能够从新的视角为中国古诗英译研究提供一定实用的参考价值，检验主位理论在翻译评估和鉴赏中的可行性。


关键词：主位，述位，主位理论，翻译