On the Translation of Address Forms from the Perspective of Identity: Taking Yang Xianyi's Translation of The Scholars as an Example

The divisions we see in The Scholars are the very epitome of distinct class and rigid stratification occurring in Chinese identity society. The address forms in this book give true reflection of the identity concept in traditional China. Based on the sociological and pragmatic identity theories, this study aims to make a qualitative and comparative analysis on the identity concept of address forms between Chinese and English version of The Scholars from two aspects: one is the social identity assumed before communication and the other is the pragmatic identity built during communication. Research findings show that some unconscious change was made on the identity concept of address forms in the original, which actually the translators have been trying to stick to, such as overloaded translation, missing translation and variation translation. It is argued that a variety of source language factors should be taken into account during the translation of address forms.