A Study Of Poem Translation Through Visualization From The Perspective Of Frame Theory

Poetry is a kind of simple aesthetic expression with images. Simple images, if ingeniously organized, can present magnificent pictures. By way of vivid imagination, readers may sense a different artistic conception and sentiment from a poem, which is original visualization. Mao Zedong’s poems have profound philosophical thoughts, rich aesthetic connotation, and strong personal characteristics. Although there have been many studies of Mao Zedong poems translation from the perspectives of adaptation, intertextuality, relevance theory and etc., few scholars have studied Mao Zedong poem translation through visualization from the perspective of frame theory. Due to the differences of the background knowledge and cultures of the readers at home and abroad, translators would make different selections in the process of translation. A comparative study of five English versions is made about the frame operation in the translation of Mao Zedong poems.Frame, a representation of knowledge system and experience in the mind, is a cognitive and psychological phenomenon. As a cognitive phenomenon, frame can acquire experience from observation and from human beings’ cultural perception of the objective world. The knowledge structure is formed with schema of experience, and is then conceptualized as a frame.The relationship among language, mind and translation shows that visualization is the foundation of poetry translation. Translators can activate frame and components through visualization, form some images or scenes conveyed by the original text, and do some frame operation of the related elements. However, deviation in visualization may cause misreading and mistranslation of the source text, and ultimately affect the translation effect.From the perspective of Fillmore’s frame theory, the study of Mao Zedong poem translation through visualization tries to find out whether different visualizations of different translators may influence the selection of frame operation or not. At the same time, it provides a new perspective for the study of Mao Zedong poetry and its translation.The main analysis of this paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, some relevant examples are selected from the five versions to illustrate the feasibility of the theory through two modes of frame operation: ideal and non-ideal. In the second part, ten typical cases from the five English versions are selected for a detailed analysis. When facing the same sentence, five translators would make relevant visualization by their own experience and cultural background system, and then select different frame operations, such as replacement of elements, addition or deletion of elements, relation adjustment, frame level adjustment, the change of frame perspective and frame transplant, which produce different aesthetic effect and influence the readers’ reading space.