Imagery Transformation And Reproduction In The English Translation Of Fairyland Excursion Poems In Wu Fusheng & Graham Hartill’s The Poems Of Ruan Ji

Wei and Jin Dynasties(A.D.220 - A.D.420)are the important periods for the development of fairyland excursion poems,during which metaphysics dominated and the development of Daoism reached its climax.Ruan Ji was one of the most influential poets at that time and created lots of fairyland excursion poems.Ruan Ji’s fairyland excursion poems,with unique style and profound artistic conception,have been studied by many scholars from different perspectives.However,studies on the translation of his fairyland excursion poems are relatively scarce.Imagery is considered to be the soul of poetry.As a special form of poetry,fairyland excursion poetry is full of cultural connotations of Daoism.In such poetry,imagery takes crucial priority,which directly affects the construction of illusory and carefree fairyland as well as the overall artistic conception.To translate fairyland excursion poems is not only to achieve the conversion among different language symbols,but also the transformation and reproduction of imageries.However,together with the form of poetry,huge differences between Chinese and Western culture lead to great difficulty in reinterpreting and reproducing imageries.In the light of this,this thesis intends to make a study on the transformation and reproduction of imageries in Wu Fusheng and Graham Hartill’s co-translation version of Ruan Ji’s fairyland excursion poems in his “Songs of My Heart”.Palmer’s Cultural Linguistics Theory regards imagery as the core of its theoretical research,especially the relationship among imagery,language and culture.This thesis adopts Palmer’s three principles in his cultural linguistics as theoretical framework,i.e.perceptual equivalence,spatial equivalence,and structural equivalence principle;classifies the imageries concerning Daoism in Ruan Ji’s fairyland excursion poems into three categories,i.e.figure imagery,natural imagery and Daoism symbol imagery;and analyzes and evaluates the imagery transformation and reproduction of Ruan Ji’s fairyland excursion poems in the version of Wu Fusheng and Graham Hartill from the perspective of language and cultureIt is found that the imagery translation in Wu Fusheng and Graham Hartill’s version has generally achieved the perceptual equivalence,spatial equivalence and structural equivalence with the original poetry.The translators choose replacement technique to transplant the imageries both shared in Chinese and English.Paraphrase and word-adding techniques are as the primary ways to interpret those imageries possibly strange to the target readers with focuses on the conveyance of their inner cultural connotation.Literal translation and transliteration are the two main methods,however,owing to the cultural gap and differences,resulting in culture information losses in the translation of some of the imageries.Meanwhile,some mistranslations occur as well because of translators’ misunderstanding toward the imagery.Generally,the version adopts the form of free verse without rhyme and is not bound by the five-character-format of the original poetry,centering on the expression of implications behind the poems.Although the translated poems fail to completely reproduce the original imageries in many cases,as a whole,most of imageries in the original poems have been reproduced and transformed in the translation.