Visual Poetry Translation And Defamiliarization

E.E.Cummings(e.e.cummings),one of the great spokespersons for American modernism in the twentieth century,is famous for his unique visual poems.As early as in the 1980 s,some translators introduced Cummings' s visual poems into China.In the present study,some classical visual poems of Cummings will be selected as examples,and both ST and their Chinese versions translated by Zou(???,2016)will be analyzed according to the framework developed by the author.From the perspective of defamiliarization,this research aims to explore the distinctive defamiliarization devices in Cummings's poems and reproduction of these devices in the target text.Two research questions are proposed as follows:(1)What are the defamiliarization devices in Cummings's visual poems;(2)What approaches can be taken to reproduce such devices in translation?This study shows that defamiliarization devices in visual poems of Cummings can fall into two levels: linguistic and structural levels.At the linguistic level,lexical,phonetic,syntactic and semantic features are explored in the ST,and other devices like(re)arrangement of letters,irregular spacing,creative use of uppercase letters will also be discussed.However,not all of these devices can be replicated in the translated version.Though translator(s)could imitate the form of ST,losses in translation would be inevitable because of the inherent differences between English and Chinese.In order to reproduce defamiliarization devices in TT and bring a fresh reading experience for target readers,translator(s)would use compensation techniques like compensation in kind and compensation in place to make up for the losses.It is hoped that this study can be inspiring for translating visual poems.