：格式塔理论下《牡丹亭》修辞英语翻译研究——以汪榕培译本为例

这有助于译者在思想上形成一个有机的整体。此外，笔者认为，运用格式塔理论，译者可以更好地根据语境来处理修辞意义，从而实现修辞意义在译文中的有效传递。此外，译者的心理过程也反映在修辞手法的翻译过程中。此外，格式塔原理的核心思想是人们有一种心理倾向，即人们在认知过程中更容易认识、记忆和使用整体要素。因此，作者认为格式塔理论中的接近、相似、封闭、连续四个原则对于分析《牡丹亭》的修辞翻译具有重要意义，从中可以看出王荣培在翻译过程中的心理倾向，为进一步研究修辞学翻译提供一定的参考。

Chapter One   Literature Review

1.1 The Brief Introduction of English Versions of The Peony Pavilion
With the development and transmission of Chinese culture, The Peony Pavilion has  been  translated  into  foreign  languages,  for  it  has  an  important  position  in  the history of Chinese classical drama. Since H. Acton selected and translated The Peony Pavilion in 1939, this drama has begun to arouse the interest of foreign readers and scholars. Afterwards, Cyril Birch translated the whole drama and published it in 1980. H.  C.  Chang  and  Stephen  Owen  selected  some  parts  of  The  Peony  Pavilion  to translate. In China those who translated or adapted this drama include Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Zhang Guangqian, Chen Meilin, Xu Yuanchong, and Wang Rongpei. Up to now, there are 23 different English versions of The Peony Pavilion (丁水芳,  杜泉贵  40). Those English versions can help Chinese culture spread abroad and foster cross-cultural  communication.  As  Wang  Rongpei  mentioned  in  The  Peony pavilion—Its  English  Translation  and  Propagation,  The  Peony  Pavilion  is  good enough  to  be  on  a  spar  with  William  Shakespeare’s  Rome  and  Juliet,  and  he  also pointed out the translators, as pioneers of cross-cultural communication, have made a great  contribution  to  the  translation  of  this  drama  so  the  translators’  achievements can’t  be  ignored  (48).  Therefore, making  a study  on  the translations  of  The  Peony metaphor,  and  metonymy,  and  analyzes  how  the  translator  groups  the  linguistic elements  which  share  similar  characteristics  into  a  whole  meaning  in  terms  of  the principle  of  similarity.  Thirdly,  the  author  discusses  the  translation  process  of personification, repetition, and pun, and analyzes how the translator supplements the semantic blanks of the original text in terms of the principle of closure. Fourthly, the author discusses the translation process of duality, parallelism, and rhetorical question, and analyzes how the translator strengthens the logicality and coherence in terms of the  principle  of  continuity.  The  author  also  gives  two  typical  examples  to  each rhetorical  device,  making  the  analysis  of  the  rhetoric  translation  specific  and convincing. 
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1.2 Researches on the Translation of The Peony Pavilion
Since  the  beginning  of  the  21st  century,  especially  after  Wang  Rongpei’s translation of The Peony Pavilion published, the research on the translation of The Peony Pavilion has gradually become a hot topic. In recent years, the number of the research  on  the  Wang  Rongpei’s  translation  of  The  Peony  Pavilion  is  increasing obviously.  After  2005,  the  research  theme  has  gradually  become  richer,  and  Wang Rongpei’s translation strategies, translation ideas, translation process, and translation style have all begun to be deeply studied (刘锦晖，王密卿 23). Some scholars have made  research  on  this  topic  from  different  perspectives.  This  thesis  discusses  the translation research of The Peony Pavilion in terms of several aspects, such as the study  on  a  single  English  version,  the  comparative  study  between  two  or  among multiple English versions, the research from different translation theories, translation strategies or techniques, and cultural translation.
First  of  all,  there  are  some  studies  on  a  single  English  version  of  The  Peony Pavilion.  For  example,  Wang  Xin  (2013)  discussed  the  feasibility  of  using hermeneutics  in  Chinese  opera  after  analyzing  The  Peony  Pavilion  on  the  basis  of four  hermeneutic  translation  stages.  Tang  Yixin  (2017)  made  a  research  on Culture-loaded  words  translation  in  Xu  Yuanchong’s  Edition  of  Dream  in  Peony Pavilion from the perspective of Interpretive theory. These studies often pay attention to a single translation, so they can deeply analyze the translation theories, strategies and techniques in the translation process. 
Secondly, there are some  comparative  studies  on the translation of The Peony Pavilion.  Huang  Ying  (2011)  made  a  study  of  the  two  translations  of  The  peony Pavilion by Birch and Wang Rongpei from the perspective of language and culture on the  basis  of  defamiliarization  theory.  Jiang  Linyuan  (2012)  made  a  research  on analyzing the strategies of the translators in the transformations of language, culture and communication through the comparative study of the three English versions by Cyril Birch, Zhang Guangqian and Wang Rongpei. 
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Chapter Two  Theoretical Framework

2.1 The Explanation of Gestalt Theory
The term “gestalt” was originally put forward in the essay “On Gestalt Qualities” in 1980 by Wertheimer’s teacher, Christian von Ehrenfels, who was a philosopher and psychologist.  In  “On  Gestalt  Qualities”,  Ehrenfels  developed  Ernst  Mach’s form-quality theory. Moreover, “Gestalt” is a German word, which has two meanings. Firstly, it refers to shape or form, namely the quality of the object. Secondly, it means a concrete entity, which has the characteristic of having a particular form or shape. It is not a special form, but refers to the object itself. Form is only one of the attributes of an object. That is to say, “Gestalt” is  any isolated whole. Thus, “gestalt” is not translated  into  “structure”,  but  “configuration”.  In  Gestalt  psychology,  “Gestalt” means “form is generated from the sensation”, which describes the phenomenon that a complete  schema  is  composed  of  its  parts,  and  consequently  the  most  important theoretical cornerstone of Gestalt psychology is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts (鲁枢元  81). Obviously, the quality of these parts depends on the whole, and the problem that Gestalt theory deals with is the relationship between the whole and the parts.
Gestalt theory points that “the world is a sensible coherent whole, that reality is organized  into  meaningful  parts,  and  that  natural  units  have  their  own  structure” (King  et  al.  910).  When  people  recognize  the  world,  they  perceive  the  world  as  a sensible coherent whole instead of meaningful parts during cognitive process of the people. Besides, Gestalt theory originates from the analysis of a variety of phenomena in the field of visual perception. Koffka proposed the Gestalt view of perception in his paper  “Perception:  an  Introduction  to  Gestalt  Theory”  in  1922,  indicating  that perception has the integrity which cannot be found in any part. That is, perception cannot be interpreted as the collection of sensory elements or simply the sum of its parts. In conclusion, the whole is not simple combination of every part; the quality of the whole decides the quality of the part, and the quality of the part lies in its relation, location and function in the whole.
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2.2 The Development of Gestalt Theory
Gestalt theory comes into being due to many factors including the special social and historical conditions, as well as the backgrounds of the science, philosophy, and psychology at that time. With the rise of the German Empire in the late19th and early 20th  centuries,  the  concepts  of  “unity  of  will”  and  the  research  on  “integrity” extended to all aspects of social life. And during this period, because of the further development  of  the  concepts  of  “field”  and  “field  theory”,  physical  sciences abandoned the idea of mechanism, which greatly influenced Gestalt psychologists. In the  domain  of  philosophy,  Immanuel  Kant’s  apriorism,  Edmund  Husserl’s phenomenology, and Ernst  Mach’s empirical philosophy had  a profound impact on Gestalt  psychology.  Some  ideas  were  put  forward  by  other  philosophers  such  as Alfred North Whitehead and Thomas Hunt Morgan. They also influenced the Gestalt psychology.  Additionally,  some  psychologists  had  an  enormous  impact  on  Gestalt psychology. For example, Franz Brentano is the founder of act psychology and thinks that  psychological  phenomenon  is  holistic,  and  Carl  Stumpf  holds  that  mental function  has  an  important  feature  of  integrity,  which  significantly  influences  the “holism”  of  Gestalt  psychology   (王鹏等  26-29).  Christian  Von  Ehrenfels  is  the founder of the form-quality school which has a direct influence on Gestalt psychology. The  famous  representatives  of  Gestalt  psychology  are  three  German  psychologists, including Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Koffka. They conducted the experiment  study  of  the  perception,  and  the  experiment  of  “apparent  movement” which becomes the starting point of Gestalt psychology. It is generally recognized that Wertheimer is the main founder of Gestalt school, while Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka  made  a  great  contribution  to  the  inheritance  and  development  of  Gestalt theory.

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Chapter Three Rhetorical Devices of The Peony Pavilion ............................. 21
3.1 The Explanation of the Rhetoric ................................. 21
3.2 The Function of the Rhetoric ................................ 22
3.3 Rhetorical Devices Used in The Peony Pavilion ...................... 23
Chapter Four The Application of Gestalt Theory to Wang Rongpei’s Translation ...... 37
4.1 The Application of the Principle of Proximity .................................... 38
4.1.1 Allusion ................................... 39
4.1.2 Hyperbole ........................... 42

Chapter Four The Application of Gestalt Theory to Wang Rongpei’s Translation

4.1 The Application of the Principle of Proximity
The principle of proximity indicates that the things that are close together are more likely to be seen as a whole, because those isolated elements are not stable and difficult  to  be  recognized,  remembered  and  used  by  people.  It  is  obvious  that  the psychological  mechanism  has  a  great  influence  on  people’s  cognitive  process  and aesthetic tendency. Secondarily, every linguistic element has its own meaning, but the whole  meaning  of  the  source  text  is  based  on  the  integration  of  these  linguistic elements, which indicates the translator’s overall aesthetic experience of the source text. The whole meaning is more than the simple sum of the linguistic elements, but an integrated meaning produced by the translator. This is conducive to the effective transmission  of  an  integrated  rhetorical  meaning.  Thus,  during  the  process  of translation, the translator has a psychological tendency to perceive those discrete but correlated linguistic elements as an integrated meaning, in order to form an integrated meaning and make the sentence structure more stable. Besides, when the linguistic elements of the source text are arranged into a whole, the target text will be easier for the  target  readers  to  understand  and  remembered.  As  for  rhetoric  translation,  the rhetorical  devices  contain  many  linguistic  elements  in  the  text,  which  should  be analyzed in the context and the author should grasp the integrated meaning of these linguistic  elements.  Then  the  structure  of  the  target  text  can  be  more  stable  and cohesive, and then the language can be concise. 

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