Studies on Chinese-English Translation of Lisao’s Antithesis in the Same Sentence

The antithesis between the sentences or within the same sentence in Lisao is one of the important factors of its unique style. To present Lisao’s style with original taste and flavour not only needs the reflective thoughts on the profound understanding of the diverse antithesis structures from a literary viewpoing with its thematic functions and language features of original work under a marco-level, but also needs to keep an eye on the text form from a linguistic perspective with careful deliberation and analysis on chapter, sentence and word under the mircro-level, which can enable translating those into the target language to make them “information-equaled” and maintaining the translation style to make the translation “taste-original”. By studying ten Chinese-English translations of Lisao and analyzing the translation methods from some of the best versions, we find that, in virtue of minor parallel structure in English, the antithesis in the same sentence of Chinese ancient poems can be well-transmitted; with the reference of the sentence structure of English poems, the differences in expression between the two languages and the gaps in western and eastern thoughts can be bridged; making use of the English poems’ rhyme regulation, the unique Chinese rhyme patterns can be fine-compensated as well, which effectively neutralize the “untranslatable factors” of the Chinese ancient poems’ antithesis in the same sentence. Thus, the English versions’ muti-dimensional artistic effect can be reached in the aspects of style both on surface form and on the deep meaning.