The Stylistic Effect And Translation Of Iconicity In Ancient Chinese Poetry

In recent years, with the development of language study, some linguists begin to pay attention to the relationship of language structure and concept structure and believe that language structure to a considerable degree is iconically motivated. The concept of iconicity is put forward in contrast to that of arbitrariness. Iconicity is the study of the similarity between linguistic form or structure and the concept it represents. It provides us with a new perspective of language, from which we can see that language is not entirely arbitrary; it is motivated jointly by non-formal factors such as reality, physiology, cognition, pragmatics. Language iconicity is one of the important theories in cognitive linguistics, has been under heated discussion both at home and abroad.It is assumed that literature can be regarded as iconic that its form may strive to imitate in various ways the reality it represents. Poetry, a typical literary form, requiresbeauty in form, sound, and meaning and thus abounds in the use of iconicity. The further study of iconicity proves that there exists certain connection between the theory of iconicity and practice of translation. From the perspective of iconicity, scholars consider iconicity into literature, which reflects the real life in various ways. Many literary methods in the literary words are used for special purpose to make the works sensed as artwork as much as possible. It is a fact that iconicity prevails in the literary works. This thesis applies the theory of iconicity into the stylistic research and regards the iconicity as an important device to achieve certain stylistic effect. Based on the iconic principles, the present thesis proves that iconicity manifest itself in ancient Chinese poetry and certain stylistic features and effect can be achieved by employing the various iconic principles.This thesis would explore the iconicity and problems of translation in ancient Chinese poetry. Based on the general principles of iconicity and through the analysis of real practice, the thesis proves that the ancient Chinese poetry is also abundant in the phenomena of iconicity. Making use of comparative method, the present thesis demonstrates that taking iconicity as the cutting point in the process of translation is conducive to the translation of the original style and to the realization of meaning through forms and reproduction of the artistic conception of the original work. It has some guidance and revelation on the theory research and practice of translation.The theory of iconicity provides us with a new perspective for the translation study of ancient Chinese poetry, and enables us to reassess the significance of poetic form in translation.