A Comparative Study On Metaphor Translation In The Two English Versions Of Camel Xiangzi From The Prospective Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Camel Xiangziis one of the masterpieces of Lao She-the language master,and one of the most influential works of Chinese realism literature.This novel describes the tragic fate of Xiangzi,the representative of working people who lived in the warlord's wartime period in a humorous and authentic language style,reflecting the persecution of the old Chinese social system to people.As an outstanding representative of Chinese literary works,readingCamelXiangzi is one of the important ways for foreign readers to understand Chinese culture,so the quality of its translation is crucial.Compared to other types or forms of literature,the language of a novel is more literary.Handling the conceptual metaphor well is of great significance to cultural communication.Concept metaphor theory was put forward by Lakoff and Johnson in 1980s in the book-Metaphors We Live By.From the perspective of conceptual metaphor theory,metaphor is a way of thinking and cognitive mode,which is a systematic mapping process from a specific conceptual domain to an abstract conceptual one.Starting from the definition and characteristics of conceptual metaphor,this thesis firstly classifies metaphors in Camel Xiangzi,and then chooses the translated versions of Howard Goldblattand Jean James as the corpus to select quantitative examples for comparative study.By studying the similarities and differences of translation strategies adopted by the two translators under different mapping situations,and exploring the reasons for the differences in translators'translation methods,this studyexpects to provide some references for the future translation practice of conceptual metaphors in other literary works and enrich the metaphor translation research from the perspective of conceptual metaphor theory.The research results can be presented as follows:Firstly,conceptual metaphors in this novel can be analyzed from the aspects of structural metaphor,ontological metaphor and orientational metaphor.Secondly,translators would adopt different translation strategies under different mapping situations.In general,Howard Goldblattmostly uses free translation strategy while Jean James often takes literal translation method.Thirdly,the choices of translation strategies adopted bydifferenttranslators are influenced by many factors like translator's translation purpose and cultural background and so on.Based on the comparative study on these two translated versions,this thesis can further enrich the study on metaphor translation from the perspective of conceptual metaphor theory,and provide some guidance and re fere nc e for the prac tice of me tap hor translatio n in other literary works.