Imitation: The Basic Means For Aesthetic Representation In Literary Translation

Researches on literary translation are always linked with aesthetic studies. According to Liu Miqing (刘宓庆), aesthetic translation follows a law of four steps: comprehension of artistic elements in the source text, transformation of these elements into the target text, improvement of the aesthetic senses obtained, and aesthetic representation. As the goal of aesthetic translation, the final step requires translators to manifest the original aesthetic information in the target language. In order to accomplish it, "imitation" can be adopted as the basic means. In literary translation, imitation means that translators imitate the original literary beauty at various levels, on the basis of faithful transition of semantic content.Based on Liu's Translation Aesthetics theories, the thesis is devoted to a tentative research on imitation in English-Chinese literary translation. Liu's three categories of imitation are applied as the theoretical framework. The text material is the Chinese linguist Lv Shuxiang's (吕叔湘) translation of the novel Ethan Frome. The descriptive and explanatory case study is on the foundation of three categories of imitation: SL-oriented imitation, TL-oriented imitation and dynamic imitation. Aiming to reveal how imitation works as the basic means for aesthetic representation in literary translation, detailed explanations will be given.The research reinforces the proposition that "The basic means for aesthetic representation in literary translation is imitation". The result can also be applied as theoretical reference for translation appreciation and language study in translators' training programs.