A Cognitive Study Of Translator's Subjectivity In The Three Versions Of Tang Poetry

Classical Chinese poetry is characterized by its simplicity,connotation,vividness,conciseness,and significance,which provides a possibility for translation diversity.Linguists,who hold cognitive linguistic view on translation,believe that translation is a cognitive activity,and that the cognitive research on it should be an indispensable part.As a representative of poetry,Tang poetry makes the translation of it relatively difficult due to its high degree of unity on the sound,form,and sense.Besides,unique genres also make its translation non-objective,which provides plenty of resources for study on translator's subjectivity.For quite a long time,the studies on translation mainly focused on the objectivity and equivalence of the outcomes and results of the translation,and the perspective varies a lot.However,as a cognitive subject,translator plays an important role in the process of translation.Subjectivity of translator is also reflected in poetry translation to some extent.In the process of translation,the translator can more or less reveal his or her subjective perspective,choice,judgment,affect,attitude,and personal preference in the target text,which is the substantiation that translation is not absolutely impersonal and it cannot completely exclude the subjectivity of the translator.Previous literature rarely focuses on the subjectivity of the translator,particularly devoid of studies from cognitive perspective.Thus by applying the theories in Cognitive Linguistics to the analysis of the translation of classical Chinese poetry,the thesis attempts to explore the following two questions:1)What are the main manifestations of the translator's subjectivity in different English versions of Tang poetry?2)What are the effects of the translator's subjectivity on poetry translation from cognitive linguistic view on translation?To answer these questions above,the present thesis adopts subjective construal theory and conforms to the cognitive linguistic view on translation to make a comparative study among the three English versions by Bynner,Tang Yihe,and Xu Yuanchong in subjective construal dimensions,aiming at discussing the subjectivity of translator in different translated versions.It analyzes the main differences of the translator's subjectivity reflected in the translation activity and its effects on poetry translation.A lot of cases of translation on Tang poetry are applied to support the thesis as well.To conduct the study,the thesis is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is about introduction including research background,research purpose,research questions,research methodology,significance,and thesis organization.The second chapter is about previous studies at home and abroad.The third chapter expounds the theoretical framework used in the whole thesis.The fourth chapter is the core of the thesis,discussing the manifestations of translator's subjectivity in poetry translation and the effects on poetry translation.The final chapter draws the conclusion and points out the direction for future research.The study demonstrates that the subjectivity of translator is reflected in scope and background,perspective,salience,affect,and epistemic modality,etc.It analyzes the manifestations of translator's subjectivity in lexical item,person,spatial proposition,tense,voice,direct speech and indirect speech,rhyme,static and dynamic conversion,choice of subject,wording,rhetoric,punctuation,modal verbs and so forth.Through the discussion of poetry rhyme,title,vocabulary and sentence pattern in different translated versions,the thesis unearths differences and explains the effects of translator's subjectivity on poetry translation.This thesis finds that in the process of translation,subjectivity is an inevitable and indispensable element,because the main subject of translation,the translator,is endowed with subjectivity.Translation is the result of the embodiment of the cognition of the translator,whose subjectivity is non-arbitrary but constrained from objective conditions.Translator's subjectivity has an impact on translation,such as distinct interpretation of the original text,different choice of translation strategies,different cognitive processing,various creations,giving different aesthetic views to the target readers and satisfying different readers.It is hard to achieve complete equivalence in poetry translation,and the choice made by the translator reflects a kind of way of thinking closely concerned with human cognition.So in the translation of Tang poetry,a lot of translation techniques and strategies will be needed so as to keep unification of the original text as much as possible,and achieve the rationality for translation construal.The present thesis stresses that it is feasible to study translator's subjectivity from cognitive perspective and that great importance should be attached to subjectivity in poetry translation,whereas objectivity cannot be completely denied.On the premise of objective truth,translators are expected to exert their creativity and subjective initiatives in the multiple interactions with the cognitive subjects.