A Study Of The English Translations Of Culture-specific Metonymies In Wei Cheng

For a long time, translation has been regarded as a process of metaphor，selectionand replacement, while the metonymic feature of translation has received littleattention. Research on definitions and classifications of metonymy in the westernworld has been widely conducted and certain findings have been made. But in theliterature of Chinese translation studies, most studies are about the traditionalrhetorical perspective, and research on metonymy transfer is somewhat neglected.Moreover, most current metonymic studies only focus on language level, and theconstraining factors like culture has been disregarded. Within the framework ofcognitive linguistics, this research adopts a fairly well-established metonymic theoryto investigate the translation of culture-specific metonymies and find out the relatedtranslation methods. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are used.Wei Cheng is a famous modern novel in China characterize by its humorouslanguage and rich cultural information. Currently, studies on its English translationmainly focus on humor translation, metaphor translation, semantic translation,foregrounding translation, culture-loaded words translation as well as translation strategies and translation methods. This thesis first tries to identify the Chineseculture-specific metonymies in Wei Cheng and then studies their translation methodsin its English version Fortress Besieged by Jeanne Kelly and Nathan K. Mao.The conclusion is summarized in the last chapter of the thesis and major findingsincludes:(1) most Chinese metonymies can be translated through either domesticationor foreignization in Wei Cheng. In the English translation of Wei Cheng by JeanneKelly and Nathan K. Mao, domestication strategy takes a ratio of79.1%,foreignization takes a ratio of9.5%, and omission takes only11.4%in the total ninechapters;(2) the English translation of metonymies is affected by suchculture-specific factors as Chinese material culture,Chinese institutional culture andChinese spiritual culture. Metonymies of cultural universality shared by the Chineseand English languages can be preserved while culture-specific items can hardly betranslated in a metonymic way.