A Study Of The Translation Principles Of Chinese Idioms Of"V₁I₁V₂I₂" Construction From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor

Chinese idioms are the essence of Chinese. They possess their own special characteristics. Chinese idioms are a kind of special linguistic form of Chinese, with rich images, integrated semantic meanings and simple and condensed structures. These special characteristics increase the difficulty of the translation of Chinese idioms.At present, traditional translation theories and methods present a complex state, most of which, however, focus on the texts of comprehensive styles, without consideration of the special characteristics of Chinese idioms. Therefore, traditional translation methods are short of systematicity and pertinence. The development of the western conceptual metaphor theory and the maturity of construction grammar have opened up a new theoretical perspective for Chinese idiom translation. The "thinking perspective" of conceptual metaphor provides a new viewpoint for reconsidering the nature of Chinese idioms and the nature of Chinese idiom translation. In traditional studies of Chinese idiom translation, most of the scholars pay their attention on either images or structure level. However, the images and the structures of Chinese idioms interact with each other. The concept "form-meaning pairs" of construction grammar supplies theoretical foundations of searching for the features of the prototypical structures of Chinese idioms, and also guarantees the interaction between image and structure to produce idiomatic meanings after semantic blending.Based on conceptual metaphor and construction grammar, three principles of Chinese idiom translation are proposed through the comparative analysis of the Chinese idioms of "V1I1V2I2" construction in the two translated versions of Hongloumeng to solve the problem of the shortage of systematicity and pertinence in the translation methods of Chinese idioms in order to improve the overall quality of the translation of Chinese idiom.