A Study On Cultural Loss And Its Compensation In The Translation By Stephen Owen Of The Poetry Of Du Fu

Culture is the unique gene of a nation.Translation is an enterprise responsible for the communication and spreading of cultures,during which the traces of cultural differences will inevitably exist.Differences in culture,ideology,and values can probably lead to cultural losses in the process of translation.How to reduce and compensate for cultural loss and how to make China correctly understood by the world is an important issue in promoting the reception of Chinese culture in the world.Translating Chinese poetry into a foreign language serves as an important threshold for the world to understand traditional Chinese culture.Stephen Owen is a famous American sinologist devoted to the study of Chinese poetry,who plays an essential role in disseminating Chinese poetry and promoting Chinese culture's influence worldwide.The Poetry of Du Fu translated by Stephen Owen is the first complete English translation of Du Fu's poetry in the world.Based on Xia Tingde's study on translation compensation,this study takes Owen's English version as the research object,analyzes the cultural losses as well as the corresponding cultural compensation strategies in Owen's translation of Du Fu's poetry.Firstly,this study collects and classifies the cultural loss and compensation in Owen's translation of Du Fu's poetry;secondly,it discusses the cultural loss in Owen's translation from three aspects—rhyme and rhythm,pattern,and image;thirdly,this thesis explores cultural compensation strategies adopted in Owen's translation at linguistic and aesthetic levels.At the linguistic level,there are three aspects—lexical compensation,grammatical compensation,and discourse compensation.At the aesthetic level,it includes compensation of the aesthetic form and aesthetic value and these two aspects are further discussed in detail.Finally,it concludes that due to the differences of the language system,culture and customs,ideology and other aspects,the cultural loss in the process of Owen's translation of Du Fu's poetry is inevitable and the cultural compensation techniques he adopts are worth studying.Owen's The Poetry of Du Fu can provide a reference for the translation of Chinese cultural classics and lend a new perspective for the establishment and promotion of China's cultural image.Relatedstudies are just unfolding and this thesis can make a contribution to this field.