A Study on the Correlation of “Gaixia Ge” and Its English Translations from the Perspective of Experiential Metafunction

Abstract

This paper attempts to analyze and compare the transitivity processes of “Gaixia Ge” by Xiang Yu and its seven English versions from the perspective of the experiential function of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics and makes a comment on the similarities and differences among them. Through the analysis of the transitivity of the poem and its translations, it is found that there are 6 versions for the first line, 2 versions for the second and the third lines, and 4 versions for the fourth line, in which the transitivity maintains a certain consistency with the original poem. After the analysis of similarities and differences between them, Spearman Correlation is applied in the SPSS. It shows that there is a significant positive relationship of transitivity between the version by Watson and the original poem, among which the translation by Watson is highly correlated with the transitivity of the original poem with the following coefficient, ρ = 1.000. This study can give clues to the study of poems and their translations, by exploring the differences of the transitivity processes, participants and circumstantial elements with the theoretical framework of Functional Grammar.