A Study On English Translation Of Li Qingzhao’s Tz’u Poems From The Perspective Of Translation Aesthetics

Tz u poems are gems of ancient Chinese literature and art. Li Qingzhao s tz upoems can be divided into two stages: in the earlier stage, her tz u poems are mainlyabout naive life as a teenage girl and love with her husband; in the latter stage, most ofher tz u poems express grieves caused by subjection of nation and losing of home. Thestudy of English translation of tz u poems by Li Qingzhao, a poetess in the SongDynasty, is an important part of the study of Chinese literature history, which is helpfulto enrich and perfect the research content of Chinese literary history, and deepenscholars understanding of Li Qingzhao both at home and abroad.Interdisciplinary feature of translation has been generally accepted in the field oftranslation. Disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, and linguisticshad been introduced into translation studies. Historical trend and development of thewhole culture stimulate translation to combine with philosophy especially aesthetics. Asthe requirements of artistic quality of translation grow increasingly higher, aesthetics issure to become an indispensible support for practice and theory in translation studiesespecially in literary translation studies with its mature theoretical foundation andcriteria for evaluation. Liu Miqing orientated translation aesthetics as the core mode ofChinese translation studies, indicating that translation s ontological affiliation isaesthetics not linguistics, and the basic framework of modern translation aesthetics ispreliminarily formed: centers on aesthetic analysis of language and aestheticrepresentation; pays close attention to translation strategy theories and representationtheories of emotion and consciousness system in transformation from Chinese intoforeign languages and vice verse; uses choose the fittest, choose the best as strategy foraesthetic representation in translation; lays emphasis on the role of empathy in aestheticrepresentation in translation.Tz u poetry is lyric poetry. In translating tz u poems, attentions should be paid tothe grasp of emotion so as to fully represent the features and expression methods of theoriginal s emotion. Previous studies on English translation of Li Qingzhao s tz u poemsfrom the perspective of translation aesthetics are mainly based on beauty in sound, form, meaning, image and artistic conception. However, the study on aesthetic representationof emotion has rarely been conducted. On the basis of theoretical framework of LiuMiqing s translation aesthetics, this thesis is aimed at exploring translation methods andstrategies for emotion representation through analyzing Li Qingzhao s tz u poems fromnon-formal system of the original and the level of sound, words, sentences andparagraphs in formal system. By comparative analysis of examples, this study comes tothe following conclusions: By comparative analysis of examples, this study comes tothe following conclusions: in translating Li Qingzhao s tz u poems, the role of empathyshould be played to the full so as to represent emotion of the original in the targetlanguage; take choose the fittest, choose the best and empathy as translation strategiesand use various compensating methods like transferring, restituting, adding to eliminateempathy barriers.The study carries out a systematic analysis on the theoretical basis of translationaesthetics. Focusing on better representing emotion in the original, it choosesrepresentation of emotion as breakthrough point creatively and combines translationstrategies of choice of the fittest, choice of the best, and empathy, which providesreference for improving translation quality of classical Chinese poetry and facilitatesthe spread of China s outstanding literary works worldwide.This thesis is divided into five chapters: Chapter One is about this thesis s researchbackground, objectives, significance and methodology; Chapter Two is aboutoverviews of the condition of English translation of Li Qingzhao s tz u poems andChinese translation aesthetics; Chapter Three is the theoretical framework of this thesis,which mainly introduces orientation of translation aesthetics and important componentsof it; Chapter Four is the main part of this thesis, which focuses on analyzing emotionrepresentation of three translation versions of Li Qingzhao s tz u poems according toLiu Miqing s system classification of translation aesthetic object; Chapter Five is asummary of research findings of this study and suggestions for future study of Englishtranslation of Li Qingzhao s tz u poems.