Translation Of Cultural Images In Du Fu's Poems From The Perspective Of Palmer's Cultural Linguistics

Du Fu is the greatest realistic poet in Tang Dynasty.In his whole life,he has written about 6000 poems,with only about 1400 poems retained.Du Fu's poems are characterized by plenty of unique images,which reflect profound Chinese culture.Therefore,it is significant to conduct research on cultural images in Du Fu's poems.In 1996,American linguistic anthropologist Gary B.Palmer put forward cultural linguistics,with imagery as its core concept.Palmer holds that imagery not only includes visual imagery but also allows for imagery that arises from other sensory modes.Image,language and culture have inseparable relationship.Palmer's cultural linguistics provides new theoretical foundation for the study of cultural images.Taking Du Fu's 56 poems translated by Wu Juntao and Rewi Alley respectively as the study material,this thesis attempts to make classification of cultural images in these 56 poems and apply Palmer's four principles for understanding imagery to evaluate cultural imagery translation of Du Fu's poems.These four principles are principle of perception equivalence,principle of transformational equivalence,principle of spatial equivalence and principle of structural equivalence.The research methods employed in this thesis aremainly text analysis and comparative analysis.Major methods to translate cultural imagery are put forward as well.The main conclusion of this thesis is that,cultural images in Du Fu's 56 poems can be classified into auditory images,visual images,kinesthetic images and rhetorical images according to Palmer's definition of imagery and the collected material.Palmer's four principles can be applied to evaluate cultural imagery translation of Du Fu's poems.Based on the relationship among image,language and culture,the author concludes three major translation methods,including preservation,substitution and omission.This thesis provides some guidance for cultural imagery translation and other translation activities.