Translation Of Images In Chang Hen Ge From Cultural Perspective

As poetry is the essence of language, image is the soul of Chinese classical poetry and it reflects rich Chinese culture. The translation and appreciation of poetic images is the key to the translation of Chinese classical poems. Images can transform abstract feelings and thoughts into something concrete and visual. The understanding and appreciation of images is the first and the critical step in translating poems. Therefore how to translate images becomes the top task that needs discuss. However, Chinese classical poetry is abundant with cultural connotations and cultural obstacles turn out to be biggest difficulties when translating poetic images.Based on the previous research achievements, a general research on the origin of images and different views on poetic images of Chinese and English scholars as well as the definition of culture and three levels of culture are discussed in the beginning of the thesis. Then the characteristics and ways of combinations of images in Chinese classical poetry are talked about. The translating difficulties lying in the way of translating poetic images is also discussed. The author holds that, despite all these difficulties, poetic images are translatable. Chang Hen Ge being the most famous long narrative poem and a perfect integration of description of events, expression of feelings and depiction of scenes is taken as the study subject. Images in this poem are divided them into surface cultural images, middle cultural images and deep cultural images according to the partition of culture. Transliteration, preservation and substitution are used when translating surface cultural images, the last two translating methods also apply to the translating of number images. Transplantation and compensation are adapted to translating images in the situation of cultural parallelism and cultural default. When deep culture is involved, foreignization goes to Chinese religious beliefs and traditional concepts with the purpose to transmit typical Chinese culture. Domestication is used translate aesthetic appreciation which is more subjective so as to conjure up in the target readers the same picture. Some mistranslations appeared in Fletcher's version and the reasons that lead to these mistakes are analyzed as well.In conclusion, this thesis emphasizes that the essence of translation is not merely on language level but cultural communication. Planted and flourished in the soil of Chinese culture, poetic images are the manifestation of Chinese culture and the translation of them is actually transmission of brilliant Chinese culture to foreign countries. Thus, a study of images from cultural perspective is of great significance in this globalized world.