| Against the backdrop of Europe-oriented academic mode, a dominating fashion advocating the western translation theories prevails in domestic translation circles. As a result, Chinese epistemic essence have been neglected and marginalized. Domestic scholars tend to assimilate and adopt western thinking mode resulting in the fade-out of peculiar Chinese Xiang thinking, a thinking mode of cognition and analysis from the perspective of Xiang. This thesis is an attempt to verify the unparalleled strength of Xiang thinking, an epistemic paradigm of traditional Chinese philosophy, and the translation of Chinese into English in the light of Xiang thinking.As the philosophical paradigm and ontology of traditional Chinese culture, Xiang thinking is a poetic thinking mode combining spiritual speculation and rationality, meanwhile featuring originality, abstruseness and embodiment. On one hand, it functions as poetic speculation transforming the abstract into the life mode; on the other hand, it transcends the physical form to the ultimate concern of Dao. Following the covert relationship between tangible Xiang and non-directly identified Xiang, Xiang thinking aims at the unity between Man and Heaven or the perfect fusion of objectivity and subjectivity through poetic association. As to the recognition of the text, Xiang thinking advocates the penetratration into the text beyond the words to explore the implied meaning under Xiang and initiate a new explanation way to pursue the meaning beyond Xiang.This thesis studies the close links among Xiang, Chinese philosophy and poetics with a view to illustrating its profound connotation. Referring to the status quo of the development of Xiang thinking, the definition and the characteristics of Xiang thinking are tentatively discussed. In view of the correlation between Xiang thinking and metaphorical thinking of the western second-generation cognitive linguistics, this thesis is to confirm the original wisdom of the oriental culture with reference to the cognitive studies of metaphorical thinking. Following up, the translation under the guidance of Xiang thinking is to be further discussed in the translation of Xiang descriptions in HLM. As concentrated symbols, Xiang in HLM bears endless connotations in the development of plot and the unconcealing of theme. Moreover the author's subjective intention is reflected through the mapping between the object imagery and the character. Thus the pursuit of imagery beyond imagery is undoubtedly the transcendental value of this work and endows boundless vitality to it. The transition from the perceivable Xiang to the meta-imagery beyond imagery determines the experiential interaction and subjectivity of the translation activities in the light of Xiang thinking. First of all, the perceivable Xiang is the outcome of sense organs or rather the interaction between the subject and the objective world. Likewise, through the interaction with the text, the translator immerses himself in the original work and experiences the social reality in the work so that he could restore the original meaning of Xiang and guarantee the heterogeneous isomorphism of Xiang between different cultures. Secondly, the pursuit of Xiang transcending the tangible Xiang promises the limited creativity of the translation subjects. Based on the perceivable Xiang, the translator should transform the original Xiang into the target text by divergent thinking and poetic association and finally realize the dynamic equivalence between the original text and the target text. However, Xiang is varied and subjected to different aesthetic consciousness, thinking modes and many other factors, thus bringing many difficult problems to translation. In order to realize the successful transformation of Xiang, the translator should attain the perfection of unity between Man and Heaven by virture of poetic chaos and fuzziness to ensure that the Xiang in the target text is in compliance with the orginal Xiang and the ultimate meaning. In the last part, the thesis analyzes the translation of Xiang descitptions in HLM such as the imagery of gold, jade, flower and plant to elaborate the thinking process from experiencing concrete Xiang to the sublimation of association so as to retain the exotic Xiang and undistorted meaning to the utmost.In conclusion, as the root of Chinese culture and philosophy, Xiang and Xiang thinking are characterized by holistic experience and intuitive speculation, thus they are supplementary to the conceptual thinking stressing logical analysis. The preservation and promotion of the epistemic paradigm of Chinese culture as well as the rational understanding of Xiang thinking is conducive to the translation practice. The study of Xiang thinking and the application of it in the reasonable translation performance are expected to carry forward the spirit of the original wisdom of the oriental culture. |
