| The history of metaphor studies traces back to Aristotle’s On Rhetorics. Since the1980s,metaphor studies have changed the focus to cognition. That change has greatly promotedmetaphor studies. Since the1990s when metaphor translation studies became the researchtopic in academic field, metaphor translation studies have developed quickly and become anindispensable branch of metaphor studies. Traditionally, metaphor translation studiesresearched metaphor as a rhetorical device. Those studies, therefore, were confined to thelinguistic level. The cognitive mechanism in the source text (ST) and the target text (TT) wasseldom discussed. Lakoff et al. studied metaphor with a cognitive approach, and proposedConceptual Metaphor Theory. According to them, metaphor presents people’s cognition.Their thoughts not only have brought new perspective to metaphor translation studies butenhanced the reliability of translation analysis.With the improvement of techniques and the popularization of computers, buildingcorpus has become a frequently used method in linguistic researches. As a branch of corpus,the parallel corpus provides a new method to translation studies based on computer techniques.This method promotes translation studies to develop from prescriptive researches todescriptive researches. Based on this method, translation studies become more objective.Hence the corpus-based study is of great significance for translation studies of Tao Te Ching.Tao Te Ching, the classic of Taoism—Chinese native religion, is the earliest completelyphilosophical writing in China. With around five thousand words in total, it contains richcontents, including worldly principles, philosophical values, political view, and cosmology.There are numerous metaphors in Tao Te Ching, constituting four themes, namely,道(“Tao”),德(“Te”),无为(“Wu Wei”), and辩证法(“Dialectics”). Metaphor is not onlythe rhetorical device but the realization of thought. Among the translations of religious works,Tao Te Ching has the second most versions, second to Bible. Among Tao Te Ching’s Englsihversions, Arthur Waley’s version (Waley’s version) and Lin Yutang’s version (Lin’s version)are regarded as the best.In order to deeply explore the similarities and differences of conceptual metaphortranslations in the two Englsih versions of Tao Te Ching, this paper tries to make a comparative study on conceptual metaphor translations under the guidance of ConceptualMetaphor Theory. Based on the parallel corpus of Waley’s and Lin’s English versions, thisthesis answers the following questions:1) What are the conceptual metaphors in the ST?2) What are the similarities and differences between Waley’s version and Lin’s versionunder the guidance of Conceptual Metaphor Theory?3) Are there any differences of conceptual metaphor translation strategies adopted byWaley and Lin? What’s the cause?Based on the seven steps of Metaphor Identification Process (MIP) proposed by Steen etal., the metaphor categories by Lakoff et al. and explanations on Tao Te Ching by ChenGuying et al., the author identifies conceptual metaphors of the ST and encodes them. CapitalA is marked for the structural metaphor, capital B for the orientational metaphor, capital C forthe ontological metaphor, and “$...$” is used to separate metaphorical expressions fromnonmetaphorical expressions. As for the TT, capital L is marked for the literal translation,capital F for the free translation, capital N for annotation, and capital O for the omission.Based on both quantitative statistics and the qualitative analysis about the conceptualmetaphor translations in Tao Te Ching, this research indicates that:1) Conceptual metaphors of Tao Te Ching, in accordance with their contents, can becategorized into four themes, i.e.,道(“Tao”),德(“Te”),无为(“Wu Wei”), and辩证法(“Dialectic”). Each theme can be subdivided into structural metaphors like TAO IS MOTHERetc., orientational metaphors like TE IS DOWN etc., and ontological metaphors like TAO ISWATER etc.2) Conceptual metaphors in different categories are translated with different translationstrategies. At the macro level, Waley prefers domestication, while Lin prefers foreignization.At the micro level, Waley’s version uses literal translation, free translation, annotation, andomission, while Lin’s version employs literal translation, free translation and annotation.3) The different translation strategies between the two translators concern with theirdifferent cultural backgrounds, different thinking modes and different translation purposes. As for cultural backgrounds, Waley’s native language is the target language (TL) and he is morefamiliar with the TL culture, while Lin’s native language is the source language (SL) and he ismore familiar with the SL culture. Hence Waley uses more annotations to better transmit thethought of the ST through explaining the metaphor of the ST. Lin, however, uses more literaltranslations, maintaining the metaphor of the ST. With respect to thinking modes, Westernersmainly take on the “linear thinking” and they prefer to directly express the intention, whileChinese take on the “spiral thinking” and they prefer to express their intention indirectly.Hence Waley prefers to propose the intention, changing the sequence of the original sentence.With respect to translation purpose, Waley aims to bring Taoist thought to the West. Hisversion, therefore, should be more acceptable by the TL readers. Since his native language isthe TL, making translation more closely to the TL usage is more beneficial for him to expressthe thought of the ST. Hence omission which is beneficial for the TL is only found in Waley’sversion. That strategy is not found in Lin’s version since he does not focus on the TL readers.His version focuses on the faithfulness to the ST. Hence more literal translations are used inhis version.On this basis, it is believed that Conceptual Metaphor Theory is of great applicability tothe metaphor translation studies. Moreover, translation studies under the framework ofConceptual Metaphor Theory are of significant value to metaphor translations. |
PDF Full Text Request