Cultural Contribution To The Image Conveyance In Classic Chinese Poetry Translation

As the cream of a nation's language, poetry teems with abundant cultural images. The cultural image of the original work should be expressed and the cultural meanings be transmitted as appropriately and completely as possible. In this sense, poetic translation is not only a bilingual, but also a cross-cultural activity.Culture means the total way of life of a people. There are two types of culture: material and spiritual. Cultural phenomena involved in poetry can be graded at three levels— the surface, middle and deep levels. At the surface level, culture mainly refers to the concrete, tangible things, like plants, animals and so on. Owing to the generalities between humans of all nations, the translator will hardly encounter much difficulty when he/she transfers directly from the source language to the target language. At the middle level, culture mainly refers to the social custom, works of philosophy, history, and literature and so on. Sometimes cultural phenomena run parallel to each other or other times there is a gap between them, which makes it necessary for the translator to aim at cultural communication. At the deep level, culture mainly refers to the way of thinking, ideologies and so on, which are abstract and intangible. More often than not, the SL culture and the TL culture may be isolated from each other either linguistically or psychologically. While translating at this level, the translator should strive to bridge the cultural gap by developing a sharp cultural awareness and taking flexible measures.