帕尔默文化语言学视角下杜甫诗歌文化意象的英译研究

本文是一篇语言学毕业论文，本文在充分考虑意象、语言、文化三者之间关系的基础上总结了诗歌文化意象英译的方法，即保留法、替代法、省略法。本文为诗歌文化意象英译及其他翻译活动提供了借鉴。

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1A Brief Introduction of Du Fu and His Poetry
Du Fu(712-770) is one of the most brilliant poets in Chinese history. Accordingto his official title, people call him the Left-Hand Censor or the Councilor of theMinistry of Works. In the span of his life, he has written about 6000, with only morethan 1400 poems remained.
Du Fu’s life and his poems can be pided into four periods. The first period isbefore the age of thirty-five. During this time, he learns diligently and visits manyplaces. Of this period, the well-known poems are Looking at Taishan (《望岳》), ThePainting of A Falcon (《画鹰》) and so on. The second period is from thirty five toforty-four. He lives in Chang-an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty. Some of his famouspoems in this period are Ballad of the War Chariots (《兵车行》) and Song of TheRoad-Going from Capital to Fengxian (《自京赴奉先县咏怀五百字》). The thirdperiod is short before he is forty eight. During this time, he writes many poems thathave won universal praise. For example, Moonlight Night 《(月夜》), Spring-The LongView (《春望》), Writing for the Scholar Wei (《赠卫八处士》), The ConscriptingOfficer at Xin’an 《(新安吏》), The Conscripting Officer at Tongguan《(潼关吏》), TheConscripting Officer at Shihao (《石壕吏》), Lament of the New Wife (《新婚别》) ,ect. The last period is his last eleven years. During this time, he writes more than onethousand poems, some of which are Good Rain on A Spring Night (《春夜喜雨》),Song of the Autumn Wind and the Straw Hut (《茅屋为秋风所破歌》), Good News ofthe Recovery of the Central Plains (《闻官军收河南河北》), Autumn Feelings (EightPoems) (《秋兴八首》), Writing on An Autumn Holiday (《登高》), On Seeing theSword Dance of A Pupil of Madame Gongsun (《观公孙大娘舞剑器行》), ect.
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1.2Background and Significance of the Study
Chinese classical poetry, as one of the excellent literature heritages, has attractedmore and more researchers’ attention at home and abroad. Since Du Fu’s poetry is ofhighly cultural value, domestic researchers conduct researches on Du Fu’s poemsfrom multiple aspects, ranging from cultural-loaded words, translator’s subjectivity tohermeneutic philosophy. However, Du Fu’s poems still have not been given enoughattention. His poems are characterized by plenty of unique images, which reflect richand profound Chinese culture. Unfortunately, only a small number of studies areconducted on cultural images in his poems. Although Du Fu’s poemshave beentranslated into English in great quantity, the study of these English versions is quiterare, not to mention the study of the cultural imagery translation of his poems.Therefore, cultural images in Du Fu’s poems are still a fertile land to explore. It issignificant to do further research on the translation of cultural images in his poems.
In 1996, American linguistic anthropologist Gary B. Palmer published Toward ATheory of Cultural Linguistics. Cultural linguistics does not care much about howpeople talk about some objective reality. Instead, it concerns the way people talkabout their imagined world (Palmer, 1996, p. 36). That’s to say, it concentrates onhow people frame experiences and abstract meanings from their imagined world. Infact, cultural linguistics is a theory of mental imagery.
In recent years, many scholars have attempted to do their research on thetranslation of literary works from the perspectives of Palmer’s cultural linguistics, butonly a few researchers study the translation of cultural images in Du Fu’s poems fromthis angle. The author of this thesis finds that it is a research vacuum. Therefore, thisresearch will focus on English translation of cultural images in Du Fu’s poems fromthe perspective of Palmer’s cultural linguistics by comparing Wu Juntao’s and RewiAlley’s versions. Besides, the author intents to testify that Palmer’s four generalprinciples can evaluate the English translation of cultural images in Du Fu’s poems.Additionally, some translation methods will be put forward with the purpose to makesome contributions for poetry translation.
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CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Previous Studies on the Translations of Du Fu’s Poems
Abundant experts and scholars have conducted researches on Du Fu’s poetry dueto the high culture value. These researches can be pided into four categories.
First of all, Du Fu’s poems are served as examples in the study of Chinesepoetrytranslation. For example, Yuan Xunhe (2015) says that poetry of the TangDynasty has strict rhyme. When translators render them into English, they shouldretain the rhyme of the original. He analyzes the News of the Recapture of Henan andHebei by the Imperial Armies(《闻官军收河南河北》) to demonstrate how GuZhengkun retains and reproduces the expressive and musical rhyme patterns of theoriginal poetry. Wei Jin (2009) remarks that, same sentence pattern in differentlanguages will not always achieve equivalent rhetorical effect because of thedifferentiation between Chinese and English culture.Sometimes, translators arerequired to break down the restriction of fixed sentence patterns, and employ differentsentence patterns which are functionally equivalent to those in the source language,aiming at reproducing the cultural spirit of the source text. She takes“岱宗夫如何, 齐鲁青未了”as an example and demonstrates her opinion by analyzing Xu Yuanchong’sversion. It can be seen that these researchers do not put Du Fu’s poems as theirresearch focus. Instead, they just take Du Fu’s poems as examples.
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2.2 Previous Studies on Cultural Images in Literary Works
Cultural image is a unique literary phenomenon with profound culturalconnotations. It can arouse readers’ aesthetic feelings and achieves a higher literaryeffect. In 1999, Xie Zhentian put forward the term “cultural image” for the first time,and took “Yangzhou”, an image of place as his example. He expounds that culturalimages can be “plants, fixed expressions, idioms,allusions, or vehicles in metaphors,even numbers.” Cultural images have been impartible elements in literary works, andattract more and more researchers’ attention.
For example, Li Yanqin(2012)puts her research focus on “candles”, whichappear in classical poetry or Ci-poetry. This author explores their symbolization anddifferent cultural connotations in various contexts. Zeng Yue(2014) has studiesEnglish translations of characters’nicknames in The Book and The Sword and TheDeer and the Cauldron from the perspective of cultural contexttheory. This authorfinds that characters’nicknames are often related to cultural images, such as digits,Chinese idioms, names of plants and animals. Chen Miaomiao (2012)reviews themain ideas of the functional equivalence theory and cultural images. She explores theimage differences in thinking patterns and expressions traced back to the sources ofreligions, beliefs and customs,etc. By analyzing some different versions of imagestranslated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, and David Hawkes, she expounds thetranslation strategies of cultural images from the perspective of functional equivalencetheory. Du Hui(2013) takes Gladys’ version of Bian Cheng as her example and doesresearch on cultural imagery translation from the angle of context adaptation. Theauthor classifies the cultural images in The Border Town into national cultural images,religious cultural images, allusions and idioms, and plants and animals. Sun Ying(2014) pides Chinese cultural images into five categories covering plant, animal,number, color, and ancient Chinese legend.
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CHAPTER III THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................12
3.1 The Emergence of Cultural Linguistics .......................12
3.2 Palmer’s View on Image .................14
CHAPTER IV CLASSIFICATION & TRANSLATION OF CULTURAL IMAGES INDU FU’S POEMS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CULTURAL LINGUISTICS ..17
4.1 Factors on Translation of Cultural Images.........................17
4.1.1 Cultural Factors.......................18
4.1.2 Linguistic Factors..................19
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION...........................50
5.1 Findings.....................50
5.2 Limitations ....................51

CHAPTER IV CLASSIFICATION & TRANSLATION OFCULTURAL IMAGES IN DU FU’S POEMS FROM THEPERSPECTIVE OF CULTURAL LINGUISTICS

4.1 Factors on Translation of Cultural Images
It’s obvious that language and cultural has an indispensable relationship betweeneach other. Language is the carrier of culture and every language assimilatesnutriment and gets life from its culture. There is no aspect of human life not touchedand altered by culture, so culture exerts huge influence on language and translation(Zou Wei, 2008, p. 76).The relation between language and culture will not constitutesuch serious difficulties for cross-cultural understanding if it is not for the numerousmisconceptions about language and its function within a society.Therefore, it is veryimportant to have an accurate understanding of language and culture.

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CHAPTER V CONCLUSION

5.1 Findings
Cultural images in Du Fu’s poems are embodied with distinctive and profoundcultural connotations. They can evoke unique aesthetic feelings and artistic appealing.Therefore, the author holds that more efforts should be made to conduct research oncultural imagery translation of Du Fu’s poems. Something significant the author hasfound in this research is summarized as following.
First of all, based on the collected materials, cultural images in Du Fu’s poemscan be pided into auditory images, visual images, kinesthetic images and rhetoricalimages. Auditory images cover sound of human, sound of nature and sound ofsupernatural beings. Visual images are further classified into plant images, animalimages and astronomical images as well as images of human. Rhetorical imagesinclude images of allusion, images of hyperbole and images of antithesis.
Secondly, Palmer’s cultural linguistics, as a theory about mental image, can beapplied to analyze cultural imagery translation. In his opinion, all images areconstructed by culture and personal history. Besides, images are closely related tolanguage and culture as well. After painstaking effort, the author of this thesis findsthat, Palmer’s four general principles can be used to evaluate cultural imagerytranslation of Du Fu’s poems. The principle of perceptual equivalence can be used toevaluate visual and auditory imagery translation, the principle of transformationalequivalence can evaluate kinesthetic imagery translation, the principle of spatialequivalence is valid to evaluate the translation of image of hyperbole. The principle ofstructural equivalence can be applied to evaluate whether the structure of images ofantithesis translation is of coherence and of good organization.
Thirdly, on the ground of analysis on cultural imagery translation in chapter four,the author summarizes some effective methods of cultural imagery translation in DuFu’s poems. Preservation is the most common way to deal with cultural imagerytranslation. The substitution method is applied when equivalent images in the targetlanguage do not exist or misunderstanding or distortion will arise if some images aretranslated directly into the target language. If some cultural image matters little inunderstanding the whole poem, omission would be used in translation activities.
reference(omitted)