An Iconic Approach To The Rendering Of Sound And Form In Tea Poetry Translation

In recent years, the theory of iconicity has become one of the hotly-discussed issues in the linguistic field. Iconicity refers to a natural resemblance or analogy between the form of a sign and the object or concept it refers to in the real world or rather in our perception of the real world. With embodied philosophy as its theoretical foundation, the theory emphasizes on the similar internal experience of the outside world by different people from different cultures with different native languages. As we all know, translation is intercultural as well as interlingual communication. Therefore, the theory of iconicity has provided a new approach to translation, especially poetry translation as iconicity manifests itself most prominently in poetry.Poetry is universally acknowledged to be the most difficult text to translate as it has integrated sound, form and meaning harmoniously into a whole. Sound and form are two indispensable components of poetry because they are two important means used by the poet to express and reinforce his meaning. As iconicity is mainly concerned with the motivation of a sign in terms of sound and form, thus it is of great value to investigate the rendering of sound and form in poetry translation from the point view of iconicity.China boasts a sophisticated tea culture. Tea poetry is considered to be the most important component as it is seen as the breakthrough and main object of study in tea culture research field. Thus tea poetry is of great translating value in introducing China's tea culture to the outside world. However, the relevant research on tea poetry translation is still in its infancy, let alone the study on tea poetry translation from the perspective of iconicity. The author in this paper intends to venture into this particular field.Taking tea poetry as a case study, this thesis aims to make a tentative study on the rendering of sound and form in poetry translation in the light of iconicity. Through the analysis of the rendering of iconicity in tea poetry both on the sound level and form level, including onomatopoeia, sound symbolism, rhyme, shape iconicity, quantity iconicity and etc, this thesis claims that the theory of iconicity is favorable for the rendering of sound and form of the original poems. Sound and form are not only the carrier of meaning, but also the indicator of meaning. The translator's duty is to preserve the iconic features of the source poem in the target poem. Thus, the meaning of the source poem can be fully conveyed and intercultural communication can be greatly intensified. To be noted is that this thesis has no intention in overstating the role of iconicity or denying the arbitrariness of linguistic signs, but hopes to be able be shed some new light on poetry translation research.