The Translation and Interpretation of Tujia Love Songs “Six Sips of Tea” and “Tangerine Tree”

Abstract

Tujia love songs is one of the important types of Tujia folk songs. The paper analyzes the typical features of folk songs, regards song translation as a constrained translation and mainly introduced Peter Low's Pentathlon Principle in the west and Jun QIN's five rules on Chinese song translation. The principle and rules have been considered and applied in the paper, which then focuses on case analysis of two Tujia love songs "Six Sips of Tea" and "Tangerine Tree". For the first song "Six Sips of Tea", the authors translate and interpret it by involving tea culture and view of marriage. They also make a comparative study between their translated version and singable version online rendered by Jun QIN. For the second song "Tangerine Tree", after translating it, the authors interpret it from different aspects. In the process of translating and interpreting two songs, unique Tujia culture and dialect have been displayed. The paper concludes that whether folk songs are to be translated for singing or for comprehension, the constraints such as rhymes or melodies shall be taken into consideration. Generally speaking, translating Tujia folk songs is of complexity and the interpretation of these songs need comprehensive knowledge of Tujia Culure.