Image Reproduction In Tang Poetry Translation From The Perspective Of Cognitive Context

Poetry is the essence of language. And imagery, as the soul of poetry, constitutes the core of classical Chinese poetry and serves as a key to the appreciation of it. So the reproduction of image occupies an indispensable position in poetry translation. While in the process of transformation of language forms, the"cultural context"which is closely connected with the original culture is changed, leading to its reconstruction in the other cultural environment deposited in terms of the target language. And the reproduction process is confined by the different cognitive contexts of the original writers, translators and their readers.Cognitive context, an important concept in cognitive linguistics, initiates a new angle to deal with the understanding of language and the inner process of information processing from the perspective of cognitive psychology. Context is not totally objective existence, but closely related to the speaker or hearer's physical environment, cognitive ability and experience which play an essential role in the construction of context.This thesis, from the perspective of cognitive context, aims to reproduce the image in Tang poetry, analyze the role cognitive context plays in the image translation, with emphasis on the restrictions by the cognitive context of the poet and the translator of the poetry, and on the reproduction of the image in consideration of the target readers. Furthermore, the functions of cognitive context, namely revealing culture, improving the comprehension and enriching the creativity are under discussion.Meanwhile, the varieties of translated versions of image are mainly due to the cognitive differences of the translators. So the analysis of cognitive context could also gain further insight into the nature of translation process and provide suggestions to judge the quality of the translation.The thesis will be divided into five parts:Chapter One is the introduction of the reason for choosing this topic and the goal of the paper as well as its possible contributions.Literature review constitutes Chapter Two, which is mainly about the development of the theory of context, with a detailed study on its features, factors determining the construction of it, as well as the close relations between translation and cognitive context. Chapter Three presents a clear idea about imagery in Tang poetry, and its features and image combinations determine its important role in analysis of Tang poetry.As the core of the thesis, Chapter Four first points out the restrictions of cognitive context in the reproduction of image in Tang poetry. After a detailed study of the functions of cognitive context in the image reproduction in Tang poetry, the thesis further illustrate the important role of cognitive context played in the understanding, appreciation and reproduction of image in Tang poetry through the comparative study of two translated version of the image in Shan Zhong Song Bie.Chapter Five is mainly to point out the contributions and limitations of this thesis.