A Comparative Study Of Two English Versions Of Wang Wei's Poems From The Perspective Of Figure-Ground Theory

Wang Wei had the distinction of being one of the great poets in China's literary history,and his poetry was popular with Chinese readers and readers around the world.Translation activities of Wang Wei's poetry are also in the beginning phrase,which plays a positive role in introducing Wang Wei's poetry to foreign readers.Most scholars have a research on the translation of Wang Wei's poetry from the aesthetic perspective according to the traditional standard of the sound,form and meaning.This thesis aims at exploring the translation of Wang Wei's poetry from the perspective of cognitive linguistics,especially Figure-Ground Theory."Cognitive linguistics is an approach to language that is based on our experience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize it."(Ungerer&Schmid,2001:36)Zhao Yanfang holds that as one of the most important parts of cognitive linguistics,Figure-Ground Theory is based on the prominence principle.Figure is regarded as the focus of attention and the more prominent part of our cognition,whereas Ground is the cognitive as well as the less prominent part.According to cognitive linguistic view on translation,Wang Yin,an outstanding linguist,puts it that translation is a cognitive activity in which one language is projected and re-expressed into the target language by the cognitive subjects with differently embodied backgrounds.This thesis mainly adopts the method of comparative analysis,based on the attributes of Figure-Ground Theory,taking two English versions created by Xu Yuanchong and Panline Yu respectively into analysis.Through the analysis,in the process of translating Wang Wei's poetry,we should first figure out the theme and artistic conception of the original poem,and make clear the figure-ground relation between the lines,so as to fix the prominent Figure and the points of focus in the original poem.In order to reproduce the artistic conception of the original poem from the content to form,the translator should learn to imitate the poet's cognitive model,with the corresponding sentence structures and expressions in the target language to restore the Figure-Ground relation of original poem,so as to reproduce the original style of the poem.At the same time,by comparing the two English versions of Wang Wei's poetry,we may explore the deep reasons of the differences.Firstly,it is the difference of cognitive environment in which the translators are,namely,the differences in culture and ideology;The second factor is due to the effect of the translators' creativity.Meanwhile,I also draw a series of conclusions,such as,the literariness of the Chinese poetry can lead to the reversal of Figure and Ground in the English versions,and the arrangement of Figure and Ground may be influenced by the choice of different sentence structures.The thesis applies Figure-Ground Theory to translation in order to illustrate that Figure-Ground Theory can help translators have a better understanding of the original poem,and provide a guidance to the translators to convey the messages of the original poem properly with the target language,reproducing the artistic conception of the original poem.It provides a new way for the translation of Chinese classical poetry and promotes the spreading of Chinese literature.