Conceptual Metaphor Translation In Jeffrey Kinkley's Version Of Biancheng From The Perspective Of Cultural Translation Theory

As a masterpiece of Shen Congwen,Biancheng is full of cultural characteristics of west Hunan.It has been translated into many versions by translators at home and abroad.Border Town is the latest English version by Jeffrey Kinkley.The studies of Biancheng and its translations are paid more attention to linguistic and cultural dimensions.However,it is rare to analyze the translation of conceptual metaphors.Conceptual metaphors are everywhere in Biancheng.This thesis explores conceptual metaphor translation from the perspective of cultural translation theory.Based on the conceptual metaphor theory of Lakoff&Johnson,this study divides conceptual metaphors in Biancheng into three categories:(1)structural metaphors mainly include "MAN IS SOMETHING","HEART IS A CONTAINER" and "LOVE IS THE FRUIT OF VICTORY";(2)orientational metaphors refer to the metaphors related to three spatial words“?”,“?”and“?”at the level of time,social class and scope;(3)ontological metaphors then are further classified into entity and substance metaphor,container metaphor and personification.Conclusions are drawn through case studies of three kinds of conceptual metaphors that,conceptual metaphors in source text are deconstructed and translated by Kinkley based on his own cultural knowledge and metaphorical cognitive ability.When the concepts of source domains are equal in Chinese and western culture,which means readers of both languages can grasp the metaphorical cognition and meaning of these concepts,Kinkley mainly uses the literal translation and foreignization to deal with this type of conceptual metaphors and cultural elements.When the concepts are not equal,he still adopts foreignization but adds the annotation and detailed explanation to help target readers solve the differences of cognitive knowledge and construct metaphors,and to interpret and spread the cultural information.This study borrows Nida's classification of culture,namely,ecological culture,material culture,social culture,religious culture and linguistic culture,to briefly introduce the cultural elements in Biancheng and lay a theoretical foundation for exploring the representation of cultural factors in metaphor translation.The author finds out that faced with the inequalities of cultural factors in conceptual metaphors,Kinkley conducts domestication translation and directly conveys the metaphorical meaning to readers.In this case,some conceptual metaphors and cultural factors are often ignored by Kinkley which affects the integrity of the cultural translation performance.Finally,this research evaluates Kinkley's translation from the perspective of cultural representation theory embodied in cultural translation theory put forward by Liu Miqing(2016).Case analysis and descriptive method are applied to study the conceptual metaphors in Biancheng,which opens up the research subjects of translated text.The research on Biancheng and its translations is no longer limited to culture-loaded words,ambiguous words,local characteristics and customs.Conceptual metaphor is a new 1research point.Meanwhile,this thesis enriches the research texts of conceptual metaphor in addition to classic literary works such as Dream of Red Mansions.The studies of various literary works promote readers of target language to touch with different cultures and give an impetus to exchange between different countries and to spread Chinese culture.