On Translation Between English And Chinese Poetry--from The Perspective Of Intercultural Communication

With the development of translation studies, most of scholars in the field of translation study have come to realize that translation is not only related to the two languages, but also concerned with the two cultures related to the languages. Vermeer, for example, holds that translation is primarily a cross-cultural transfer or event. Similarly, Mary Snell-Hornby looks at translation not as an activity that happens between two languages, but as an interaction between two cultures. For Christiane Nord translation just means comparing cultures. And Bassnett and Lefevere even consider culture to be the basic unit of translation and claim that it is the time for cultural studies to turn to translation studies. The author of the dissertation takes the view of translation, especially the literary translation, as a case of cross-cultural or intercultural communicative activities and holds that the process of cross-cultural exchange surely influences the translation action. Based on the discussion about the main characteristics of culture, the author generalizes that there factually exist three modes of cross-cultural exchange or communication: assimilation, dissimilation, and fusion. Correspondingly, the author holds there are three models of poetry mutual translation between English and Chinese, i.e., tangent model, coincident model, and intersectant model. Then, from the points of form and image, the important two aspects of poetry, the author exemplifies the three models of poetry mutual translation between English and Chinese. The author concludes: intersectant model will be the main one in the course of mutual translation between English and Chinese poetry, only this model can present the true essence of poetry translation viewed as a special case of intercultural communicative activities. Intersectant model is also helpful for us to dispel the fruitless argument on which should be the main trend, adaptation (domestication) or alienation (foreignization), in the field of translation studies. It also substantiates that translation is a sort of rewriting of an original from another aspect. In a word, only intersectant model can perform the goal of translation as an intercultural communicative action.