A Study on the Translation of Cultural Images into English in Chinese Poetry via Li Shangyin’s Works

By

Wang Yalan

In partial fulfillment of the requirement

For the B.A. degree

Department of English

School of Liberal Arts

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

May, 2018

Acknowledgements

Firstly, I want to express my gratitude to Instructor Pan Min, my supervisor, who has offered a lot of help and encouragement to me through all the stages of the writing of this paper. Had not been her constant help and guidance, this paper would not have been finished successfully.

Secondly, I would like to thank the authors in the references who have offered me much inspiration and have helped me ensure the correction of my direction. I am also grateful to all the teachers at the Department of English who have taught and inspired me a lot in the past four years.

Last I must express my gratitude to my family for the love and belief they have offered to me in the past several years. I also thank my friends and classmates who are willing to help me and patient to solve problems for me during my student life.

A Study on the Translation of Cultural Images into English in Chinese Poetry via Li Shangyin’s Works

Wang Yalan

Department of English

School of Liberal Arts

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

Abstract: Cultural image is an essential component of Chinese poems, which is often used by ancient poets to express their feelings or ambitions. Affected by the influence of cultural and cognitive differences, translators are required to understand the cultural images in the poem and then reconstruct a textual world which helps them transmit the meanings, emotions and even certain cultural spirits of the poem to achieve an equivalence between the differences of the source text and target text. Based on the poetry works of Li Shangyin, this paper aims to study the strategies in the translation of cultural images in Chinese poetry to help translators work out better works.

Key words: Cultural Images; Poems; Translation; Li Shangyin

摘要：文化意象是诗歌中最重要的组成部分，在古代诗歌中，诗人常常使用一些文化意象来抒发自己的情感，表达自己的志向。在诗歌翻译中，由于受到文化和认知差异等因素的影响，译者需要对诗歌中的文化意象进行解读，并且重新构建文本世界，最大程度上重现文化意象中所包含的意义和情感，甚至是文化精神，以达到译文和原文意象差异上的对等。本文以李商隐诗歌作品为例，旨在研究汉语诗歌中文化意象英译过程中的翻译策略。

关键词：文化意象；诗歌；翻译；李商隐

Contents

1.Introduction 1

2.Cultural Images in Poetry Translation 1

3.Translation Strategies of Cultural Images 4

3.1 Common Strategies Applied in Poetry Translation 4

3.1.1 Literal Translation of Cultural Images with Annotation 5

3.1.2 The Substitution of the Cultural Images 8

3.2 Unusual Strategies Applied in Poetry Translation 9

3.2.1 The Superficial Transplantation of the Cultural Images 10

3.2.2 The Omission of the Cultural Images 12

4. Conclusion 13

References： 14

1.Introduction

Literary translation, as a creative practical activity conducted by translators, is an important way to transfer Chinese traditional poetry to the world (Liu and Hong, 2008: 118). During this process, translators are required to translate both the contents and images of Chinese traditional poetry and have them understood by foreign people. The status of China having been improved, other countries become more and more interested in our nation. Translation of ancient poetry has become one of the ways for people in other countries to understand Chinese culture because they bear the spirit of ancient Chinese traditional culture (Tobakowska, 1993: 180). In the process of poetry translation, the translator’s different cultural background will have a certain influence on the translation and understanding of poetry, which will be presented in an unequal way in translated texts (Fan and Dai, 2011:185). Translators from different cultural backgrounds may have different interpretations of the words or sentences in the same poem, which might cause misunderstandings for target readers. For example, in Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind, the westerly wind represents warmth, but in our cultural consciousness, the westerly wind is generally cold while the east wind brings warmth and is endowed with the meaning of spring, warmth, and upward (Li, 2016: 89). So it should be translated into“东风” instead of“西风”. It can be seen that translators play a highly important role in the translation, and whatever they think will affect the quality of the target texts. Thus, in order to correctly understand and transmit the contents of Chinese ancient poetry and the cultural spirit contained therein, the translator must study and analyze the functions of the language and transform the images in it accurately. Only in this way, the cultural connotation can be effectively presented, the Chinese culture can be truly and comprehensively displayed, and the communication between Chinese and Western cultures can be realized.

2.Cultural Images in Poetry Translation

The explanation of the word “image” in the Collins Learner’s English-Chinese dictionary is as follows: If you have an image of something or someone, you have a picture or idea of them in your mind; The image of a person, group, or organization is the way that they appear to other people. An image is a picture of someone or something(Collins, 1989: 128). An image is a poetic description of something. Thus, the image can be understood as something that is related to imagination, as a common concept of a certain group and the basic attitude and emotional orientation toward a certain thing and also as a vivid description of one thing.

The images are widely used in people’s languages and in literary works from generation to generation, which gradually become a kind of cultural symbol with relatively fixed and unique cultural meanings--some images can also bring people some richer association with more profound meanings. Once people read these cultural images, they can understand and communicate with each other tacitly and easily.

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