On The English-Chinese Translation Of Image Language In Literary Works

Translation involves not only language transfer but also cultural differences. With different social culture, history and geographical locations between China and English-speaking countries, distinctive image languages have formed in Chinese and English, bringing the translators the problem of how to deal with these words. The author had the opportunity to take part in the "Bilingual Project" launched by the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP) and translated seven chapters of the book His Compromised Countess. This book, a historical romance by a Canadian writer Deborah Hale, is full of image language, vividly revealing the emotional world of the main characters. Often encountering a dilemma on whether to reserve or give up the images in the translation process, the author chooses it as a topic of study.The translation of image language influences significantly the reproduction of the linguistic style and feature of the original work. The author mainly adopts the method of image reservation in light of the principle that the writer’s thoughts should be faithfully conveyed in literary translation. However, giving up the image sometimes is inevitable due to cultural differences. Concrete translation methods include reserving the image, reserving the image with footnotes and giving up the image with footnotes.Through the study, the author finds that image substitution is not suitable in dealing with image language translation, for it cannot maintain cultural differences and may cause cultural misunderstanding. In addition, the author puts forward the method of giving up the image with footnotes to offset the loss caused by giving up the image on the basis of analyzing target readers of the translation, but this method should be used prudently in case of bringing reading barrier to readers. The author hopes these findings can be helpful for the translation of image language in other literary works.