A Research Of Poetic Thinking Paradigm In Translation

This thesis discusses the poetic thinking paradigm in translation. It intends to construct poetic thinking paradigm in translation based on the traditional Chinese philosophy of"the interaction between Dao and Xiang"in order to guide the translation studies and practice in China.For a long period of time, the translation studies both in China and the west have experienced a process from philological paradigm of translation studies that places great emphasis on insight and intuition, structuralist paradigm that features mechanism and pan-scientism, deconstructive paradigm that weighs upon decentralization and standardlessness and the present uprising of re-constructive paradigm of translation studies. The previous three study paradigms of translation all had their deficiencies. Therefore, they have become the center of dispute in the academic circle. Thus a re-constructive paradigm of translation study was proposed to base their translation studies on their re-constructive paradigm in order to make up for the deficiencies in previous translation studies and establish a study paradigm that is based on the interaction between rationale and sensation. The study of poetic thinking paradigm in translation discussed in this thesis is no other than a re-constructive thinking paradigm that contains both rational and sensational property, and is established upon the philosophical basis of the interaction between Dao and Xiang, an epistemic paradigm that emphasizes the interaction of intuitive experience, rational dialectics and poetic sublimation. Moreover, with regard to the status quo of present Chinese translation studies which are under the guidance of western translation theory, it is a breakthrough to study translation between western languages and Chinese language in the light of poetic thinking paradigm as Chinese language itself is deep influenced by poetic thinking.However, because of the differences between the western and Chinese poetic thinking in their nature and research paradigm, both Chinese and western scholars have not come to a clear qualitative definition of this concept. Therefore, from the perspective of philosophy and poetics both in China and the west, this thesis reviews the development of Chinese and western poetic thinking, with retrospect to their studies both in the history and at present, and gives the definition of this thesis. It is discovered that there is close relationship between Chinese poetic thinking and metaphorical thinking of the western second-generation cognitive linguistics in their epistemic paradigm. In addition, it is believed that traditional Chinese poetics based on traditional Chinese philosophy of the interaction between Dao and Xiang, has developed a mature system on its own with regard to the studies of poetic thinking and metaphor; Chinese poetic thinking has its abstruseness, speculativeness and ultimacy. And compared with western corresponding studies, it has its own advantage, perspectiveness and system. With reference to the western second-generation cognitive studies of metaphorical thinking, this thesis is to conduct a rational explication of the verification and falsification of Chinese poetic thinking and to construct the epistemic paradigm based on the verification and falsification of poetic thinking. After a comparative study of poetic thinking with western cognitive linguistic study of metaphorical thinking, the nature, the characteristics, and the epistemic paradigm of poetic thinking are further confirmed.This thesis further discusses the translation mechanism, characteristics of translation, translation process and principle between Chinese and western languages in the light of poetic thinking. Under the guidance of poetic thinking, the translation mechanism between Chinese and western languages gives prominence to the important role of Xiang played in t he interaction between the subjective world and the objective world. It is different from the translation studies within the scope of western translation theories that take less account of Xiang, i.e., the negligence of poetic features. In the light of poetic thinking, the translation process stresses that the translator pursues the meta-meaning or the original meaning of the source text on the basis of the source text, i.e., a process of experiencing Dao (which refers to the meta-meaning of source text in translation) though Xiang (which refers to the source text in translation, specifically its object image). First of all, in the light of poetic thinking, especially the interaction between Dao and Xiang, the interaction between the subjective world and the objective world has been greatly stressed in translation, which takes on the characteristics of holism. The holism is further represented in the aesthetic feature of translation which is different from the aesthetic study of translation under the guidance of western logic thinking; secondly, translation in the light of poetic thinking also takes on the characteristics of experientialism, which acts as a basis for the translatability between Chinese and western languages. Xiang is the projection of the objective world on the subjective world, which explains that there is objective source in the activities of the subject. In translation, the introduction of Xiang provides translation with authentic generating source. That is to say there is heterogeneous isomorphism between the source language and the target language, which promises the feasibility of translation; thirdly, in the light of poetic thinking, the creativity of the translation subjects is greatly stressed in this thesis, particularly the subjective function of the translator. Meanwhile, the translator's creativity is not without limitation, but is creativity with limitation, i.e., creativity with fidelity, which promises the nature of translation as translation. Finally, interactivity is also stressed in translation, i.e., the interaction between the translation subject and the text, the interaction of the subject and the text with the objective world, and the interaction between different subjects of translation. Thus the tendency of one-side biased translation studies can be avoided and the multivariate study of translation becomes the tendency of translation studies in both China and the west. With consideration of the above characteristics of translation, the translation studies in the light of poetic thinking reflect the ultimacy of pursuing the ultimate meaning of the source text. Under the guidance of poetic thinking, translation is a process of translator's pursuit of the meta-meaning or the original meaning of the author created in the source text by studying the source text in source language to trace back to the interaction between the objective world and the subjective world of the author with translator's own interaction between the subjective world and the objective world and to express such meaning in the source text that is acceptable to the reader. Therefore, under the guidance of poetic thinking, the principle of translation followed by translator is creative fidelity to the meta-meaning of the source text and the author. And finally, texts of translation between Chinese and English are selected for further analysis in order to present the principle of creative fidelity in the light of poetic thinking in translation process.In conclusion, the poetic thinking paradigm of translation which takes on experiential, speculative and aesthetic qualities based on traditional Chinese philosophy of the interaction between Dao and Xiang and guides the translator to pursue the ultimate meaning of the source text is a breakthrough to the translation studies based on the theoretical structure of western translation studies, hoping to make up for the deficiencies in the present translation studies of China and is a contribution to the construction of the translation aesthetics with Chinese characteristics.