1.1 Research background
In the past 2000 years, people thought that metaphor was just a rhetorical device. However, since the publication of Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By in 1980, people’s views on metaphor have changed dramatically. People found that metaphor is a way of thinking and reasoning. In recent years, the study of metaphor has attracted the close attention of many scholars. It seems that it has set off an unprecedented “Metaphoric Revolution” worldwide, and “metaphoric supremacy” has also become a prominent feature of today’s language research (Y. Wang, 2007, p.402).
Tang poetry is a precious cultural heritage of China and an invaluable jewel in the treasure house of Chinese culture. In today’s China, under the background of Belt and Road, going globally has become an inevitable trend. In this process, Tang poetry, a treasure of traditional Chinese culture, also needs translation to give full play to its influence. The successful English translation of Tang poetry can help the outside world to better understand China and Chinese culture. However, as mentioned above, metaphors are everywhere, and Tang poetry is no exception. There are many metaphors in Tang poetry, which is a major obstacle in the English translation of Tang poetry. The English translation of Tang poetry should be not only a conversion of symbols, but also a transfer of metaphorical meaning and the culture behind it. Therefore, translators must deal with metaphors in Tang poetry very carefully.
Regarding the translation of metaphors in poetry, there are some relevant studies at home and abroad. In foreign countries, some researchers have focused on metaphors and their functions in poetry (Abdal & Yaman, 2017; Plotnikov, 2018; Stocco, 2017; Thompson, 2018), and other researchers have discussed the translation methods and strategies of metaphors in poetry (Bassnett, 2015; Gabbay, 2016; Isaxanli, 2014; Khotimsky, 2016). However, due to cultural restrictions, there is little or no scholar aiming at classical Chinese poetry. In China, many scholars have explored metaphors and their translations in some ancient Chinese poems from different disciplines such as Cognitive Linguistics, Pragmatics, Systemic Functional Linguistics, translatology, and culture.
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1.2 Research objective and significance
The thesis takes the metaphors in Tang poetry and their English translations as the research object. By referring to the relevant metaphor identification methods at home and abroad, the metaphors in the original texts of Tang poems are identified, and their corresponding translations are also found out at the same time, and finally, the corpus is constructed. The small corpus contains original metaphors and their English translation counterparts. The source of the corpus is the Version of Classical Chinese Poetry: Tang Poetry (I & II) Translated by Xu Yuanchong (Tang Poetry for short). And the choice of the translation version is mainly based on the following considerations: the background of the national strategy of the Belt and Road; the popularity and acceptability of the translation version of Tang poetry.
Based on the primary principle of ECL and relevant research results, in this thesis, quantitative analysis on the data of the corpus is presented, and at the same time, qualitative analysis with some examples in the corpus is also given in detail. The purpose of the research is to answer the following two questions:
(1) When translating metaphors in Tang Poetry, what translation methods does the translator adopt? And what are the proportions of them?
(2) Is the translator’s choice of different translation methods related to the experience and cognition of the source and target language readers? If there is relevance, then how are they related?
The research is of theoretical and practical significance. The theoretical significance is that it can bring new perspectives and inspirations to metaphor translation studies in poetry as the research is based on the newly emerging ECL. The practical significance lies in discovering the rules of the English translation of metaphors in Tang Poetry, which can be directly applied to translation practice and improve translation quality. Doing so can not only help the translation of Tang poems, but also help other similar types of articles to better “go out”.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Foreign studies of the English translation of metaphors in poetry
In some foreign countries, some useful and inspiring explorations have been carried out by scholars from different places.
Some researchers have focused on metaphors and their functions in poetry. Stocco (2017) analyzes the notion of “territory” in bilingual Mapuche poetry by taking the idea of territory as a conceptual metaphor. Plotnikov (2018) analyzes the development of thought patterns in poetry through a conceptual metaphor. Thompson (2018) describes the process of translating Fares’s poetry and particularly emphasizes the role of metaphor. Abdal and Yaman (2017) focus on metaphors to present an integrated approach toward the analysis of poetry translation.
Some researchers have discussed the translation methods and strategies of metaphors in poetry. Isaxanli (2014) reviews and analyzes important aspects of translating poetry, such as poetic forms and metaphors, rhythm, etc. Bassnett (2015) highlights the organic metaphor used by poets and explores the strategies used to bring about creative transposition. Khotimsky (2016) explores some Soviet-era metaphors of translation in several programmatic statements and poems. Gabbay (2016) examines the methods of translating double entendres relating to the metaphor of hair among others in a passage by medieval Indian court poet Amir Khusraw.
Other scholars have gone further and borrowed research methods from other disciplines to study metaphors and their translations in poetry. Lahiani (2009) tests the workability of the principle of relevance by evaluating a corpus of eighteen English and French translations of verse 33 of the Mu’allaqa of Imru’ al-Qays, and concludes as to the translatability of a conventional metaphor. Besides, from the perspective of culture and thought patterns, Bouvier (2009) analyzes numerous French translations of Sappho’s Ode 31, finding that words and metaphors have culture- and epoch-specific memory and connotations, which cause the symptoms described by Ode 31 to vary from one translation to another. Fakhrieva, Kirillova and Alkaya (2017) analyze metaphors in Russian poetry and their Tatar translations through comparative and hermeneutic methods.
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2.2 Domestic studies of the English translation of metaphors in poetry
In China, however, more studies have been carried out on the translation of metaphors in Tang poetry and other classical Chinese poetry. Domestic scholars have tried to solve the problem from different perspectives, such as Cognitive Linguistics, Pragmatics, Systemic Functional Linguistics, translatology, culture, etc.
2.2.1 From the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics
2.2.1.1 From the perspective of Conceptual Blending Theory
Based on the Conceptual Blending Theory, Zhou Jie (2008) uses the metaphors in Three Hundred Tang Poems as a corpus and regards metaphor translation as two independent blending processes in both the source and the target language. After dividing the metaphors into four categories, Zhou summarizes four translation strategies and counts the proportion of their usage. Referring to the basic model of Conceptual Blending Theory, Luo Qianqian (2012) proposes four types of expanded translation networks and applies them to the metaphor translation in classical Chinese poems. From the optimization principles and integrated network models of Conceptual Blending Theory, Han Jiaorong (2017) comparatively studies the translation of poetical conceptual metaphors of Stephen Owen and Xu Yuanchong in Tang poetry and Song Ci, and explains the cognitive mechanism hidden in the translation process. The study finds that cognitive psychological similarities, diverse cognitive structures, and comprehension of cognitive context in the two languages are the fundamental reasons for equivalence or untranslatability in poetic conceptual metaphor translation.
语言学论文参考
Chapter Three Theoretical Framework ...................... 19
3.1 Embodied Philosophy ............................... 19
3.2 Cognitive Metaphor ............................... 21
3.3 Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics .................... 23
Chapter Four Corpus Collection and Classification ............................ 30
4.1 Source corpus ....................................... 30
4.2 Recognition of metaphor ............................ 32
Chapter Five Analysis of English Translation of Metaphors in Tang Poetry ........................... 43
5.1 Linguistic level translation .................................... 43
5.1.1 Complete literal translation ................................. 43
5.1.2 Partial literal translation .............................. 45
Chapter Five Analysis of English Translation of Metaphors in Tang Poetry
5.1 Linguistic level translation
5.1.1 Complete literal translation
“Complete literal translation” means directly translating the literal meaning of the vehicles in the original Chinese metaphors in Tang Poetry into English. For example:
[1] 君不见高堂明镜悲白发，朝如青丝暮成雪。（《将进酒》李白）
Jun bu jian gao tang ming jing bei bai fa, zhao ru qing si mu cheng xue. (Invitation to Wine Li Bai)
Do you not see the mirrors bright in chambers high Grieve o’er your snow-white hair though once it was silk-black?
[2] 沉舟侧畔千帆过，病树前头万木春。（《酬乐天扬州初逢席上见赠》刘禹锡）
Chen zhou ce pan qian fan guo, bing shu qian tou wan mu chun. (Reply to Bai Juyi Whom I Meet for the First Time at a Banquet in Yangzhou Liu Yuxi) A thousand sails pass by the side of sunken ship; Ten thousand flowers bloom ahead of injured tree.
The “qing si (青丝)” in [1] refers to “black silk”. As we all know, the typical characteristics of silk are smooth, shiny and elegant. These characteristics can be obtained by people’s observation and touch. Therefore, the translator directly translates “qing si” as “silk-black”, which not only expresses this kind of meaning, but also enables the target language readers to perceive the color and other features of silk through their eyes and hands, thereby appreciating the blackness, smoothness and luster of the hair.
语言学论文怎么写
Chapter Six Conclusion
6.1 Findings and implications
From the perspective of ECL, the thesis conducts a preliminary study on the translation of metaphors in Tang Poetry. ECL believes that language is formed based on people’s interactive embodiment and cognitive processing of the real world. Similarly, conceptual metaphor and metaphorical expression are also the results of “Embodiment and Cognition”, and the formation of metaphors in Tang poetry also follows the general process of language formation, including three phases (interactive embodiment, cognitive processing, and lexicalization) and three elements (the acquisition of experiential facts, the establishment of similar connections, and the consolidation of metaphorical expressions). Therefore, the formation process of metaphor can be described as follows: through interaction with the objective external world, people obtain direct or indirect experience, form concepts and store them in the brain, then associate them through their similarities, that is, projecting the characteristics of one thing onto another, and finally solidify this kind of connection through language expression.
The metaphors in Xu Yuanchong’s Tang Poetry are translated at three different levels, namely, the linguistic level, the cognitive level, and the realistic level. The linguistic level translation is a literal translation, and the translations on cognitive and realistic levels are free translation. Linguistic level translation refers to the translation that is directly based on the literal meaning of vehicles in metaphors, which can better convey the vocabulary expression style of the original text. Cognitive level translation means expressing the cognitive meaning of the original metaphor through the operation of the basic elements of metaphor, i.e., replacing the unfamiliar vehicle in the source language with the target language readers’ familiar one, translating the tenor of metaphor (replacing the vehicle by translating the tenor; supplementing the tenor when translating the vehicle), and translating the ground of metaphor (replacing the vehicle by translating the ground; supplementing the ground when translating the vehicle), etc., which helps to eliminate the ambiguity and uncertainty in the process of target language readers’ understanding. Realistic level translation means interpreting the contextual reality of metaphor, namely, adding information other than the tenor, vehicle and ground, or interpreting metaphors according to the current context, cultural or historical facts, which makes up for the target language readers’ lack of experience and cognition of the meaning conveyed in the source language text. The data of each translation level is shown in Table 5.
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