An Iconic Approach To Poetry Translation

Iconicity, as an essential part of cognitive linguistics, is a challenge and a complement to Saussure's arbitrariness of linguistic sign. It sets us rethinking the nature of language signs and reveals the relationship between language and cognition. The theory of iconicity argues that linguistic forms are in many ways iconically related to reality, experiential structure, cognitive ways, conceptual systems or what is expressed. The theory also holds that language is formed on the basis of bodily experience and cognitive process. Iconicity is pervasive in literature and non-literature, including poetry. It is regarded as one of the rules which restrict the structure of poems. Iconicity in poems can be studied from the textual level as well as the lexical and syntactic levels. The application of iconicity in poetry is to improve the natural and authentic ways of expression. The theory of iconicity provides us with a new perspective for the study of poetry translation, and enables us to reassess the significance of poetic form in poetry translation. What's more, it is helpful in the translator's comprehension of the texts and choices of translation strategies. Guided by the cognitive theory of iconicity, and from the angles of sound iconicity, sequential iconicity, shape iconicity, quantitative iconicity, distance iconicity, symmetrical iconicity, the paper explores the characteristics and aesthetic functions of iconicity as an effective rhetorical means of poetry and the translation of poetry. Such a study is believed to be able to shed new light on poetry translation research.