A Research On The Translation Of English Images In Gao’s Version Of The Sketch Book By Washington Irving From The Perspective Of Imagology

The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon,Gent.,commonly referred to as The Sketch Book,is a collection of 34 essays and short stories written by the "Father of American Literature" Washington Irving.Irving recorded twenty-five pieces of travel notes in Britain and constructed three types of English images—country images,London images and literature images.Irving aimed to seek spiritual roots,create a spiritual home for Americans and thus help construct the American spirit.Although most studies on this book focus on Irving’s best-known novels about America,25 essays about Britain devoting to creating spiritual home,receive less attention.Under the guidance of imagology put forward by French comparatist Daniel-Henri Pageaux,this thesis conducts intrinsic(at the level of lexicon and hierarchical relation)and extrinsic(study of imaginaire social and the translator)textual analysis of English images reconstructed in Gao Jian’s translation version.This thesis will adopt case study method as well as literature research method to explore the following research questions:(1)What translation strategies does the translator adopt in English images reconstructed?(2)Which English images reconstructed are inconsistent with the source text?(3)Why does the translator fail to reconstruct some of English images completely?This thesis analyzes English images reconstructed in the target text of The Sketch Book from the perspective of imagology,conducts close reading of text,comparison between source and target text,and analysis of paratext(preface,annotation,guiding introductions and cover page),and finally draws the following conclusions:(1)English images reconstructed are presented with the help of the strategy of free translation at the linguistic level,specifically transforming part of speeches,using four-character structures,reconstructing sentence structure,thus presenting well-polished and elegant essays;English images reconstructed are presented by means of the strategy of domestication at the cultural level,specifically using Chinese native words,intratextual annotation and extratextual footnote,thus introducing cultural elements and creating a deep cultural context.(2)The translator only selected 14 essays among 25 essays about Britain and there are places of incomplete reconstruction in them.Country images were reconstructed relatively completely.Some of London images(historical sites,and figures),literature images(writers and their residence),and religion images(figures)are inconsistent with the source text.Besides,he didn’t select the rest 11 essays.(3)Analyzed under the framework of imagology,the translator failed to reconstruct English images completely.On macroscopic view,the translator failed to understand the author’s main intention of creating spiritual home;On microscopic view,cultural disconnection and the source of information as second-hand caused incomplete reconstruction of some English images in 14 essays.Besides,Gao didn’t recognize the essays about Britain as a whole and thus only translated well-written pieces,which can be drawn from the title of book and prefaces with non-focus in Britain and incomplete selection of the source text.