Literary Translation From The Perspective Of Semiotic Meaning Theory

C.W. Morris, the American linguist, has claimed that a sign has three types of meaning, namely, referential meaning, linguistic meaning, and pragmatic meaning. These three concepts are crucial to literary translation in that they embrace almost every element involved in the interacting of two different languages like words, meanings and more importantly,context, culture, producer of the source language, and receptor of target language, without the considering of which, the full meaning of the source language can hardly be achieved. In this sense, good literary translation is not the one that merely conveys the information of the source language like those scientific translation works do but the one that fully expresses the referential, linguistic and pragmatic meanings of the original.In this thesis, the author, by applying semiotic meaning theory to the systematic research into literary translation from theoretical and practical perspectives, expounds how to achieve equivalence of referential meaning, linguistic meaning and pragmatic meaning in the process of translation.The thesis consists of six parts:In Chapter One, the author points out that translation study now comes to the interdisciplinary stage, and semiotics has been gradually taken to be a holistic way to approach literary translation and this is also what this thesis will focus on.Chapter Two presents the theoretical feasibility for applying meaning theory of semiotics to literary translation. Literary language is a special sign system, for it emphasizes more on the signifier than on the signified. Theoretical origins are found in Morris'meaning theory to achieve equivalence in semantic, syntactic and pragmatic dimensions.Chapter Three discusses the referential meaning in literary translation. Referential meaning can be obtained by the transference of the designative meaning as well as the associative meaning which is gained by the use of metaphor and metonymy.Chapter Four expounds in detail on the linguistic meaning in literary translation. Linguistic meaning is achieved by fully preserving the sound and rhythmic effect in poetry and remaining the special syntactic deviance in prose fiction.Chapter Five centers on the pragmatic meaning in literary translation. When translation is conducted, importance should be always attached, on the part of the translator, to the author of the source language, for intention and emotion of the latter has been greatly imbedded in the work.