A Comparative Study Of Willis Barnstone’s And Xu Yuanchong’s Translations Of Metaphors In Mao Zedong’s Poems

Mao Zedong’s poems(hereinafter referred to as “Mao’s poems”)are old-style poems,a contemporary reinterpretation of traditional Chinese poetry that captures the proletariat’s revolutionary struggle.As a key cognitive tool and the soul of poetry,metaphor can represent a poet’s cognitive state of mind,emotional condition,and will.Being a subjective cognitive activity,translation might reveal the subjectivity of the translator’s cognition in his choice of translation strategies.There are still some room for the research on the strategies and methods of translating metaphors in Mao’s poems from the perspective of cognition,even though the research on the translation of poetic metaphors has shifted from traditional rhetoric and aesthetics to cognitive studies.Based on the theory of conceptual metaphor and by taking Mao’s poems and the two English translations as the research object,this thesis attempts to examine the cognitive basis and working mechanism of metaphors in poetry,and investigate into the cognitive operation of the two translators in the process of metaphor translation.The data needed includes thirty-five Mao’s poems as well as Willis Barnstone’s and Xu Yuanchong’s corresponding English versions.This thesis,by using a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis,first identifies and classifies the metaphors used in Mao’s poems before explaining their working mechanism in depth;then it analyzes the similar and different translation strategies and methods employed in the two versions;and lastly it delves into the underlying factors that influence the selection of translation strategies and methods.The findings of this thesis are as follows:(1)There are five main types of metaphors in Mao’s poems,which can be divided into ANIMATE THING metaphors,NATURAL PHENOMENON metaphors,CHINESE ALLUSION metaphors,COLOR metaphors,and TOOL metaphors,and their frequency decreases in order.And each type of metaphor is further divided into its sub-metaphors.(2)The five types of conceptual metaphors in Mao’s poems play the multiple roles,including forming artistic conception,elevating Chinese ethos,and arousing popular sentiment.(3)The research findings display that both versions employ the following three typical translation methods,namely the preservation,replacement,and deletion of the source language(SL)vehicles,but there exist differences between the two versions in the translation of the sub-categories of metaphor in terms of type and frequency.The analysis reveals that the method of preserving the SL vehicles was more widely utilized by Barnstone,with the goal of enabling the target readers to appreciate the artistic conception of Mao’s poems and the Chinese culture by retaining the SL author’s aesthetic feelings and cognitive state of mind.Comparatively,Xu Yuanchong tended to delete and replace the SL vehicles so as to convey to the target readers the conceptual metaphors packed with the poet’s cognitive state of mind,emotion,and will in a concise and easy-to-understand way.(4)Different factors such as bodily experiences,cultural experiences,social values,reader awareness,and translation views all have an impact on the method choices in the two versions.This thesis compares and analyzes the similar and different translation methods employed in Barnstone’s and Xu Yuanchong’s versions of Mao’s poems in light of the cognitive linguistic theory of conceptual metaphor,which reveals the cognitive preferences of different translators in the translation of metaphors.In addition,it investigates into the multiple factors influencing the translators’ method choices,thereby promoting cognitive research on the English translation of metaphors in traditional Chinese poetry.Meanwhile,it will also be able to contribute to the dissemination of the traditional Chinese culture,revolutionary culture,and advanced socialist culture displayed in Mao’s poems.