Geographic Space And "Word-image-meaning":English Renderings Of The Old Drunkard's Arbour

Geographic spaces of the literary works are not only the necessary precondition of bringing the textual characters into literary world,but also the material image in the nature by which the writer's emotion is triggered and with which the writer express his or her emotion aroused in his personal life."Image" plays a particularly important role in conveying writer's meaning and emotion in classical Chinese works,which has been shaped into Chinese thought patterns after lasting practice for thousands of years among them.Therefore,thinking in the way "image" has been an essential and distinct characteristic in the literary expression of classical works.However,geographic spaces have been ignored by the scholars when doing academic researches on literary works,and there is almost no one who has ever studied it as an "image".As we all know,interlingual translation covers two cultural and linguistic systems,in which one is original literary text of classical Chinese works and the other is the textual works of target language and culture.If the distinctive thinking and expressing modes of the original works are ignored,there will be no way to catch what it means in them,which is just what translators try all the way to bring into the other language and text.A well-known Chinese philosopher ever said,"Image is the language inherent in Chinese philosophy.Without the image,the Chinese philosophy can not be fully expressed." For this reason,a few scholars in the field of translation studies in China proposed in the latest several years that the distinctive thinking mode of"image" should be paid more attention in translating classical Chinese works.However,as regards the questions,such as,what is the relationship between the"Word-Image-Meaning" of the source text and that of the target text,how the two systems of "Word-Image-Meaning" operate in translating classical Chinese works,what changes will probably take place in the "master-and-servant" relationship of the original works and translations from the perspective of "Word-Image-Meaning",whether translated literary works could gain its theoretical support for its independent existence and the life of its own from the viewpoint of "Word-Image-Meaning",and what edification the "Word-Image-Meaning" can be given in the implementation of the strategy "Making Chinese Literature and Culture Known Abroad"etc,to solve the problems efforts need to be made here.The aim for the thesis is to discuss what the "geographic spaces" as "Image" are in the original works and the seven English renderings of The Old Drunkard's Arbour,how they are distorted and why,with the geographic space "?" presented by a conceptual noun and the geographic space established with "???" as the central reference in a spatial narration as the research object,with the help of terrain geomorphological maps generated by GIS(Geographic Information System)and data collected by the affiliated instrument of the on-line software.After the argumentation for the dispelled and distorted "images"of geographic spaces is made,the study in the same way begins to argue whether the possibly right "images" of geographic spaces are rational or not in accordance with the internal logic relations of dialectical unity of "word-image-meaning".In other words,if what the writer bears in his heart(Meaning)can be brought out by the projection of the structure of geographic space as "image",and the "image" can also match the "Word" well,then the "image" can be claimed as a faithful and true one,for"Word is out of image".In the dialectically cognitive system of"Word-Image-Meaning",the "Meaning" projected by the geographic space as"image" is the "master" in the source texts as well as in the target texts,while,for"image" serves as the medium between "Meaning" and "Word(s)",an investigation on the sensible material object in the natural world as "image" is out of the intention to find a way to make "Word" expressive of "Meaning".An examination on the dialectically cognitive system of " Word-Image-Meaning" with "image" of geographic space as its core is to deny the rationality of stubborn literal translation,because what is most important is not "Word(s)" but "Meaning" in the system.And what's more,it is proposed in this research that if "image" can be investigated and "Meaning" can also be found by investigating "image" and a verifiable,receivable and operable strategy that makes "Word" accessible to "Meaning" can be brought to the practice of interlingual translation and intralingual translation of Chinese classical works,when geographic space serves as "image".However,it is sometimes difficult for "Word" to find a way to be expressive of "Meaning" especially when "image" is not geographic space,but something lost in the history or something individual in writer's personal life which can not bring an empirical investigation into operation.It is a truth.Based on the above-mentioned argumentation,the study makes a proposition that an investigation on the geographic space as "image"within the dialectically cognitive system of "Word-Image-Meaning" can do provide a new strategy for intralingual and interlingual translations which can ameliorate the cognition of translation and improve the translated works,while the dialectically cognitive system of"Word-Image-Meaning" itself also theoretically verifies the rationality of creative treason of translated literary works.It confirms the reasonability of the co-existence of multi-renderings of classical Chinese works,which is beneficial for the strategy"Making Chinese Literature and Culture Known Abroad".This study consists of five sections.After the first part serves as an introduction and literature review,the study successively comes into the argumentation for "?" presented by a conceptual noun(Chapter One)and the geographic space narratively established with "???" as spatial reference(Chapter Two),and finally bring all those important ideas made in the previous chapters into a comprehensive argumentation from the viewpoint of"Word-Image-Meaning" in Chapter Three under the guidance of medio-transtology.A final conclusion is made in the last part.