Image Reproduction Analysis Of The Characters In Novel Translation From Perspective Of Imagology

Being as the masterpiece of Chinese modern literature,Weicheng attracts plenty of foreign readers since it was translated into English in 1970s.Among all the characters in Weicheng,the images of Fang Hung-chien,Su Wen-wan,Chao Hsin-mei,Tang Hsiao-fu and Sun Jou-chia are chosen as prime analysis target of the research,in order to analyze the translation of images of characters from the aspects of conversation,body language,psychological activity,expression and other elements which shape these images based on the opinion of the Dutch school,expect to find the deviation that translation caused on images of characters.Qualitative and a quantitative analysis are involved into the research to understand the reproduction of image in an all-round way.In the qualitative research chapter,sentences from original novel and their translations are analyzed as examples to evaluate the image reproduction.Then English and Chinese readers' interpretations toward the images in Weicheng are compared according to the result of questionnaire survey.Finally,the conclusions are made as follows:1.From the angle of context,if the image is simple in related description as the information given by image is no more than one aspect,and no cultural-loaded term is involved in the description of image,or the culture-loaded term is well interpreted by translators,then English readers may have similar understandings toward images with Chinese readers' interpretation.If not,understanding deviation may appear.2.From the angle of translators,the subjectivity affects the reproduction of image in translation of Weicheng.Under some circumstances,equivalent verbs are difficult to find due to the difference of lexicalization in Chinese and English,translators always choose the most resembled words to minimize the gap caused by translation.For part of the cultural-loaded words in image description,they may use various translation methods flexibly,such as replacing the word with similar English expression and noting at the appendix.In some cases,however,these words are translated word by word or omitted directly,thus the image in translation is incomplete or twisted with a result of poor reproduction of image.3.From the angle of writing style,the accuracy of image reproduction is related closely with writing style.For example,if the information about image is omitted by translators,then there is no way that English readers can get access to it in translation.Further suggestions are put forward for the research method of literary translation by combining imagology and literary translation together.Last but not least,the author draws a conclusion,illustrates the limitation and provides suggestions for further research.