Experiential Metafunctional Analysis of Liu Xijun's “Bei Chou Ge” and Its English Versions

Experiential Metafunctional Analysis of Liu Xijun's “Bei Chou Ge” and Its English Versions

Cheng Huaming
Copyright: © 2023 |Pages: 11
DOI: 10.4018/IJTIAL.316932
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Abstract

This paper attempts to analyze and compare transitivity processes of “Bei Chou Ge” and its five English versions from the perspective of experiential function of Halliday's systemic-functional linguistics and makes a comment on the similarities and differences between them. Through the analysis of the transitivity of the poem and its translations, it is found that there are 5 versions for the first line, 3 versions for the second, third and sixth lines, and 1 version for the fourth and fifth lines, in which the transitivity maintains a high consistency with the original poem. Spearman Correlation shows that there is a significant positive relationship of transitivity between the version by Watson and the original poem, and the translation by Watson is highly correlated with the transitivity of the original poem with the following coefficient, p = 0.890. This study can give clues to the study of poems and their translations of the transitivity processes, by exploring the differences of participants and circumstantial elements with the theoretical framework of functional grammar.
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2. Experiential Metafunctional Analysis Of “Bei Chou Ge”

Experiential Metafunction consists of multiple semantic systems, and the most important part is the transitivity system. Its function is to express people’s experience in the real world and the inner world in several processes, and to identify the participants and circumstantial elements involved in the process. (Huang, 2002, p. 1) According to Halliday, One can divide human experience into six different processes: (1) material process; (2) mental process; (3) relational process; (4) behavioral process; (5) verbal process and (6) existential process. (Hu et al., 2008, p. 75) From the transitivity perspective of experiential metafunction, “Bei Chou Ge” consists of the following processes, namely:

  • 1.

    Material process: “Wu Jia Jia Wo Xi Tian Yi Fang (Chinese: 吾家嫁我兮天一方)”.

  • 2.

    Material process: “Yuan Tuo Yi Guo Xi Wu Sun Wang (Chinese: 远托异国兮乌孙王)”.

  • 3.

    Relational process + Relational process: “Qiong Lu Wei Shi Xi Zhan Wei Qiang (Chinese: 穹庐为室兮旃为墙)”.

  • 4.

    Relational process + Relational process: “Yi Rou Wei Shi Xi Lao Wei Jiang (Chinese: 以肉为食兮酪为浆)”.

  • 5.

    Mental process + Material process: “Ju Chang Tu Si Xi Xin Nei Shang (Chinese: 居常土思兮心内伤)”.

  • 6.

    Relational process + Material process: “Yuan Wei Huang Hu Xi Gui Gu Xiang (Chinese: 愿为黄鹄兮归故乡)”.

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