On English Translation Of Text Blanks In Ancient Ci Poetry From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

As one of the aesthetic categories of literature and arts, Ci poetry serves first for the aesthetic enjoyment. The richness of Ci poetry's beauty is unspeakable, and that is where the spirit exists; while the literariness of Ci poetry is obvious, and that is where the form beauty exists. Language is the vehicle of Ci poetry. What Ci poetry presents through the media of language is the aesthetic world. The author thinks that the aesthetic world of images is the most important element of the aesthetic world presented in Ci poetry. From the respective of reception aesthetics, the translator gets the aesthetic world of images through appreciation of Ci poetry, as a reader, during the reading process. He represents it in the translated text when translating Ci poetry into English poetry. Such aesthetic world of images is a mixture of the horizons of the translator, the text, and the poet. The most important task for the translator is to represent the aesthetic world of images in Ci poetry translation and to make the translated text become another successful English poem.Ci poetry advocates defamiliarization and image-skipping, leaving the imaginative space for the reader to imagine freely. There are often two kinds of defamiliarization in syntax in Ci poetry and they are subject omission and flexible use of word. Ci poetry is full of poetic language, many figures of speech are often used in it and two of them are the symbolic and allusion. Additionally, Ci poetry seems like the music existing in the characters. The rhythm (ping sheng and ze sheng) and end rhymes in Ci poetry produce language beauty of charming melody. Sometimes the Ci poetry lines look like broken but actually they still link up to each other through the continuous melody. From the reception aesthetics, all the forms of Ci poetry bring a series of text blanks and result in a series of difficulties to translate Ci poetry into English poetry. Text blank occupies an important place in Iser's theory of reception aesthetics. It is considered as the link-switching that activates the reader in using his own ideas to fulfill the intention of the text and considered as the basis of a textual structure with the reader's part already incorporated in it. This thesis will focus on the translation of text blanks in Ci poetry. The author puts forward the directorial rule to Ci poetry translation and it is that the translated text should resemble the original first in spirit then in form. The spirit likeness is an overall condition and the form likeness is a practical condition in Ci poetry translation. Both the spirit likeness and form likeness serve the representation of aesthetic world of images in the translated poetry.There are six chapters except the introduction. The introduction mainly involves the reasons why the author chooses Ci poetry translation as the research object and some prominent problems in Ci poetry translation. From the reception aesthetics, such prominent problems can be concluded into the translation of text blanks in Ci poetry translation. The author determines that three kinds of translation of text blanks are discussed in this thesis, and they are the translation of text blanks from syntax, words'meanings, rhythm and rhyme. Chapter One is the surveys of reception aesthetics, text blanks, and aesthetic world of images. The author puts forward""审美意境"and translates it into"aesthetic world of images". In Ci poetry aesthetics, the aesthetic world of images serves for the poet's writing and the reader's appreciation, so there are plenty of common points in poetry appreciation between the aesthetics world of images and reception aesthetics. Furthermore, text blanks are closely related to the aesthetic world of images. Chapter Two is about text blanks in Ci poetry and the representation of aesthetic world of images. The author first states the origin, development, and the features of Ci poetry. Then the author puts forward the directorial rule to Ci poetry translation: the translated text should resemble the original first in spirit then in form. The spirit likeness is something of representing the aesthetic world of images, and the form likeness is something of transferring the form beauty.Chapter Three is about the translation of text blanks from syntax and the representation of aesthetic world of images. It mainly focuses on the translation of text blanks from the flexible use of words and the subject omission. Chapter Four focuses on the translation of text blanks from words'meanings and the representation of aesthetic world of images. It mainly focuses on the translation of text blanks from the symbolic meaning and allusion meaning. Chapter Five is about the translation of text blanks from rhythm and rhyme and the representation of aesthetic world of images. Since the translation of Ci poetry began, Ci poetry is translated into rhyming verse or free verse of English poetry. The author claims that free verse of English poetry is more proper for Ci poetry translation. The rhyming verse is, of course, elegant in its sound pattern, but sometimes it is inevitable for the translator to make the translated poem loss some meanings in order to meet the rhyming scheme. From another angle of the poetry lines, Ci poetry is so graceful for its different sentences in length. The number of characters in a sentence is from one to eleven, so Ci poetry has another nickname"long-short sentences". The author considers that free verse of English poetry is more proper to represent the features of Ci poetry lines. Chapter Six is conclusions and suggestions to Ci poetry translation. Finally, she points out the limitations of this research. Many other text blanks in Ci poetry are not discussed in this thesis, for examples, there are text blanks from the syntax of the omitted functional words; there are text blanks from the rhythm of alliteration and assonance (双声叠韵), and so on. These limitations are also the further studies for the author. She will do more researches on Ci poetry translation, making Ci poetry translation step into a broader and deeper extent in the future.