A Semiotic Approach To Translation Of Imagery In Li Qingzhao’s Ci-poems

Imagery is an artistic form created out of physical objects and scenes through a poet’s emotional activity. In combination with subjective "yi" and objective "xiang", imagery is "image of the object" fused with a poet’s feelings and emotions. Therefore, imagery is an essential concept in classical Chinese poetics and its translation, accordingly, occupies a significant position in poetry translation. Li Qingzhao, a representative of the gentle and restrained school of the ci-poets in Song Dynasty, is well-known for her fresh, exquisite and unexpectedly creative images in her ci-poems with delicate language to express nuance of her sentiments. Studies about translation of Li Qingzhao’s ci-poems are abundant while research on translation of imagery in Li’s ci-poems is relatively rare. In addition, the research available is usually concerned with translation of individual images and their translation strategies, which is confined to conventional limited research scope of individual image. This thesis endeavors to probe into the translation of individual image, image cluster and image group in Li Qingzhao’s ci-poems from the perspective of interpretative semiotics, proposed by C.S. Peirce.According to Peircean semiotics, there exists a system of ontological categories comprised of firstness, secondness and thirdness, which forms the fundamental modes of reality; a sign involves three correlates (a representamen, its object and its interpretant) subordinated to the system of categories; the interaction between the three correlates is called semiosis. The analysis reveals that imagery is semiotic in nature with three correlates (a representamen, its object and its interpretant) and that imagery translation may be deemed as a process of semiosis. This view lays a theoretical foundation for this thesis.The present thesis first gives an overview of the concept of imagery at home and abroad and reviews different approaches to imagery translation adopted by previous studies, and then introduces relevant semietic notions, elaborating on the relationship between semiotics and translation, semiotics and imagery, semiotics and imagery translation respectively, and finally, adopts a semiotic approach to explore translation of imagery in Li Qingzhao’s ci-poems by discussing the essence of translation of imagery in Li’s ci-poems, analyzing in detail imagery translation on three levels (individual image, image cluster and image group) and pointing out that translators should endeavor to realize equivalence to an optimal level in translating imagery in classic Chinese poetry and ci-poetry so that Chinese literature and culture may be appropriately accepted in the target language and culture.The significance of this thesis lies in the combination of Peircean semiotics with translation of imagery in Li Qingzhao’s ci-poems, which may provide a fresh perspective for translation of imagery in poetic works. This thesis points out that the essence of imagery translation is to realize equivalence in three dimensions---qualitative, referential and significational, with the realization of significational equivalence as an ultimate goal. In other words, it should be of primary concern to convey the original ideas and emotions and to construct the artistic conception created in Li Qingzhao’s ci-poems. This, to a certain extent, transcends the traditional translation norms of "faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance" and those of the conventional Equivalence Theory. Moreover, this thesis studies translation of imagery in Li’s ci-poems on three levels---individual image, image cluster and image group, which breaks through the limitations of previous studies on imagery translation, usually confined to the equivalence of individual images. This thesis proposes that imagery translation is actually imagery reproduction and cultural transplantation within the overall framework of image cluster and image group, thus offering a broader view concerning imagery translation.