| Chu Ci is one of the two major sources of Chinese literature,and Li Sao is its foremost poem.Till today,Li Sao has demonstrated exuberant vitality in the thousands of years since its publication,attracting generations of scholars and arousing academic interests from a myriad of disciplines.Although the extensive use of metaphors in Li Sao is a source of beauty,it has also created confusion and obstacles for comprehension and translation.Since Lakoff and Johnson proposed"conceptual metaphor",the cognitive approach of metaphor has stepped into the limelight.While many previous studies of metaphor translation adopt a rhetoric angle,this novel cognitive perspective has proven its applicability.However,due attention is yet to be paid to the translation of conceptual metaphors in poetry,and comparative studies on multiple English versions of the same poem is still much desired.With reference to the authoritative notes of Chu Ci and its original text published by the Zhong Hua Book Company,this study adopts the research methods of case study and textual analysis,and takes Li Sao’s original text and English versions by Lim Boon Keng,David Hawkes and Sun Dayu as research objects to explore:(1)How were the metaphors translated in the three English versions of Li Sao?(2)How and why are the three English versions alike or different in translating Li Sao?The major findings of this research are:(1)The conceptual metaphors used in Li Sao are mainly structural metaphors and ontological metaphors.Their translations are source-domain-centered in the three English versions.(2)Owing to their individualistic cultural identities,and confined by the developing and different interpretations of Li Sao popular in their times of living,the three translators demonstrated both commonalities and differences in translating their versions.The commonalities stem from shared human experience,while the differences are attributable to different cultural backgrounds of the translators and the different understanding of the source text which is available to the translators in their times of living.Taking a conceptual metaphor perspective,this study examines how the conceptual metaphors in the original text of Li Sao were translated in the three English versions,and analyzes where and why the chosen translation strategies converge and diverge.This study provides new data and explanations for the English translation of metaphors in Li Sao,as well as a methodological reference for examining conceptual metaphors in translating classic Chinese poetry. |
