A Study Of Iconicity In The English Translation Of Meng Haoran’s Pastoral Poetry

This thesis aims to apply iconicity theory and its principles to the translation of the poems. As one of the representatives of pastoral poetry, there is no doubt that Meng Haoran has large quantities of works. Therefore, his poems can represent the characteristics of poetry of Chinese.This thesis aims to dig out how iconicity is used when Xu Yuanchong translated his poems’themes into English. As iconicity in poetry is usually not very obvious, through the analysis of iconic principles adopted in the translation of the themes, it can enrich the readers with the awareness of iconicity is not only encountered in natural language, but also in literary language, especially in poetry.This paper is based on the debate of arbitrariness and iconicity of language and classifications and principles of iconicity which is used in poetry, to analyze Meng Haoran’s poetry and its English version. Having a review of previous and current studies can point out that there are few studies on certain Chinese poetry and its English version and dig out the significance of this thesis. The research methods is first to collect all the poems of Meng Haoran in300Tang Poems translated by Xu Yuanchong. Then give a deeper insight into the way which iconicity is handled by the poets and translator, and from aspects of theme, metrical patterns and images to do deeper research to draw the conclusion that iconicity is a universal device in this poetry.This thesis gives a deeper insight into the way language is handled by poets, and how poems can be better appreciated by readers in dynamic cognitive and emotive interaction. By identifying various levels of iconicity and their impotence in poetic text, the theory of iconicity provides a new rhetorical, perspective for the interpretation of original Chinese poems.By the analysis of the original poems and the target one of Meng Haoran’s poetry, this thesis holds that the iconic approach to translation is favorable for the realization of metrical patterns, forms and imagines. Translators should preserve the iconicity of the original poem in the target poem, that is to say. translators should employ the iconic forms to render that of the original Chinese poem so that the meaning of the original poem can be well represented.The application of iconicity of poetry can clearly shows that the form of poetry not only imitates the actual world and the objects in nature, but also imitates the experience, emotions and ideas of human beings, and father proves the fact that iconicity exists in the internal and external world.