A Tentative Study Of Metaphors And Their Translation

This dissertation aims at finding out the principle and strategies of metaphor rendering mainly in the light of Reader's Response Theory. Whether metaphors are understood correctly and expressed appropriately is one of the keys to successful intercultural communication. The past study of metaphor indicated that metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon, but basically a cognitive phenomenon and a thinking mode. Based on this, the author of the present dissertation tries to seek out some positive translating methods by illuminating the influence of readership on translation. Chapter 1 is an introduction to this dissertation. In Chapter 2,the author makes a detailed investigation of metaphor from different aspects in order to examine the theoretical background of metaphor studies, functions of metaphor, metaphor and culture, and the identification and interpretation of metaphor which are all factors contributing to metaphor studies as a whole. Metaphor translation from the perspective of cognition of the target language readers is discussed in the end of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 is devoted to the general review of translation theory, reception theory in particular. And the guidance of reception theory to metaphor translation is explained and the principle to observe in metaphor translation is stated. In the following Chapter 4, the author makes an attempting analysis of metaphor translation by examining the examples mainly taken from Ru Lin Wai Shi and Hong Lou Meng of the Yangs. This chapter is the focus of the author's dissertation. In the ending part of Chapter 5, major findings and recommendations for future research are encompassed。...