Research Of Image Metaphor In The Book Of Poetry And Its Translation From The Perspective Of Cognitive Metaphor

The Book of Poetry is regarded as the origin of Chinese literature. It is rich in cultural connotation and has been studied by many scholars ever since time immemorial. In recent years, in order to better transfer poetry culture, translators and translation researchers spare no effort to strength the translation of The Book of Poetry. Presently, most scholars carry on their study of the translation of The Book of Poetry at the levels of rhyme, meaning and syntax from the perspective of literature or culture, rendering that poetry and its translation lies in conveying ideas and lifelikeness. However, there is little research so far related to the image translation of The Book of Poetry, even less from the cognitive perspective. That is the very reason why thesis comes into being. In this thesis, the author will carry on a detailed analysis of the image metaphors in The Book of Poetry with the cognitive theory of conceptual metaphor and explore image metaphor translation with relevant cognitive translation theories, bringing forward some methods and strategies for its translation. To some extent, it will enrich the study of The Book ofPoetry in research theory and research method and at the same time help readers both at home and abroad to have a better appreciation of its rich cultural and aesthetic connotation.There are six chapters in this thesis. Chapter one is a brief introduction to the whole thesis, including research background, research significance, research objectives, corpus collection and analysis as well as the organization of the thesis. Corpus of this thesis is the poems rich in image metaphors from The Book of Poetry. Chapter two is the literature review, introducing previous translation studies both of Chinese classical poetry and of The Book of Poetry. Chapter three is the theoretical framework of the thesis. It introduces conceptual metaphor theory and cognitive translation theory. Chapter four and Chapter five are the main body of the thesis. With the theories introduced in Chapter three, the author first gives a definition to image metaphor and explains its relationship with poetry. Then classification of image metaphor and its cognitive mechanism are explored. Finally, based on Mandeblit’s "Cognitive Translation Hypothesis" and full understanding of the deep implied meaning of image metaphor, the thesis puts forward three translation strategies about image metaphor translation. Chapter six is the conclusion of the thesis. Three findings are reached here. First, image in The Book of Poetry has clear metaphorical features. It can be classified into conceptual metaphor and it is closely related to the everyday life. Second, owing to the cultural difference between the eastern and western cultures, in image metaphor translation, the translator should follow the principle of seeking the common ground while reserving differences, trying to render it into the image easy to understand by the target readers. Third, three translation methods can be adopted in translating image metaphors in The Book of Poetry.(1) keeping the same image metaphor in the target language (TL),that is, in the course of the translation, the image metaphor is directly transferred into the target language (TL) when it has the same cultural connotation in both the source language(SL) and the target language (TL);(2) translating with notes, that is, in the course of the translation, the image metaphor is also directly transferred into the target language (TL) when it has specific cultural connotation in the source language(SL),but the translation must be noted in order to keep such specific cultural connotation;(3) transplanting a new image metaphor in the target language(TL), that is, in the course of the translation, the image metaphor is replaced by another image metaphor in the target language (TL) because if it is translated directly, the target language readers may not understand its real meaning or have some misunderstanding, for it has different cultural connotation in the two languages.Because there are many difference copies of the illustration of The Book of Poetry, the classification of its image metaphor may differ cognitively to some degree. So the classification mentioned in this thesis may not be so representative or authoritative; therefore, it is hoped that in the future study, with more reading of different copies of The Book of Poetry, a more detailed and scientific classification of its image metaphors will be reached and more future research into its translation will be carried on. Anyhow, it is hoped that this thesis will play the function of throwing out a brick to attract a jade, drawing more insightful scholars to do more detailed research into The Book of Poetry.