Taxonomy in Translation Studies: A Case Study of Xu Yuanchong’s Translation of “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River”

In this article, we present an application of Anton Popović’s 1976 Dictionary for the Analysis of Literary Translation and its revised versions by Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek. We analyze Xu Yuanchong’s translation of the poem “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River” with regard to the translator’s attitude, the equivalence of translation, the historical and cultural encoding of translation, and the adaptability of translation. We argue that the taxonomy’s application in translation studies provides a new research paradigm and analytical framework for the study of literary translation and the translation of classical Chinese literature in particular.