A Study Of Chinese Couplet Translation From The Cultural Perspective

As a special literary form, Chinese Couplet is a particular cultural treasure in China, a comprehensive product of aesthetics and Chinese characteristics in this great nation, and a special achievement accumulated by the high-ranking creation in several thousand cultural histories. Chinese Couplet is compact and carefully constructed with a deep intension; it is also ingenious with more fun, and has a vocal variety and lively rhythm. Therefore, Chinese Couplet translation is an important part of promoting Chinese culture and the Eastern Civilization Spread Out to the West.In fact, a deal of attention has been paid to the study of Chinese Couplet translation for a long time. However, previous studies of Chinese Couplet translation were mostly from the perspective of comparative literature, equivalent principle, German functional translation theory, translation strategy, aesthetic angle, translation style, translatability, pragmatics, etc. Based on these previous studies, this thesis examines further the Chinese Couplet translation mainly from a large cultural perspective and by means of a case-study method, placing emphasis on the cultural conveyance in vocabulary, grammar and rhetoric. The aim of this study is to treat Chinese Couplet as one of the literary forms in cultural communication, explore the approaches to the cultural information in Chinese Couplet translation, and arouse the attention of those who are interested in Chinese Couplet and its translation. For this reason, the thesis argues that the Chinese Couplet translation at both levels of form and content should take cultural communication as its purpose, make every effort to convey the cultural connotations of Chinese Couplet, retain their cultural implications to the utmost, and reduce the cultural loss in translation as much as possible.The whole thesis is divided into six chapters. The first chapter and the sixth chapter are the introduction and conclusion parts. The second chapter basically introduces the origin and history of Chinese Couplet and its influence in foreign country; Chinese Couplet's characteristic; its cultural information; and the importance of Chinese Couplet translation. From the third chapter to the fifth chapter are main contents. The third chapter will discuss Chinese Couplet's cultural convey in the translation process from its vocabulary level, which mainly from the aspects of the words'choice and cultural gaps in two different languages. The fourth chapter will explain Chinese Couplet's cultural convey from its grammar level, including the translation conducts in sentence structure, syntax structure and logical relationship. The fifth chapter will analyze Chinese Couplet's culture convey in the level of rhetoric, mainly contained three ways: retention, flexibility and renunciation; and introduce the translation of Chinese Couplet's metrical feature.Since Chinese Couplet is a miniature of Chinese national literary form, a good translation will better help foreigners to understand not only the Chinese literature and cultural tradition, but also the characteristics of the Chinese language and the national spirit of the Chinese people, and eventually promote cultural communication and carry forward the Chinese culture at and to a higher level.