On Double-leveled Domestication And Foreignization In Translating Tang Poetry: From Philosophical Perspective

The dissertation, through combining philosophy, text linguistics and translatology, delves into approaches to culture transmission and language shift in English translation of Tang poetry. Via inter-disciplinary study, the author advances his double-leveled D&F (domestication and foreignization) theory. Ancient Chinese Tang poems are selected from corpora to justify the theory for they are typical literary texts, paragons of Chinese language and culture, whose translation principles and methods are applicable to other literary translations.Based on dialectics and contradiction theory, combining diachronic study with synchronic study, D&F prove to be a contradictory unity. They are interdependent yet not always on equal terms. The author's further researches demonstrate that traditional studies of D&F are characterized by blurred orientations and superficial analyses. Therefore, in view of cultural turn and cross-cultural communication, the author argues that D&F could and should be positioned at two levels. At cultural level, they are translation strategies, involving attitudes towards source culture and target culture; at linguistic level, language shift techniques, similar to literal translation and liberal translation.After justifying the double-leveled D&F, the author put this very theoretical framework into practice—English translation of Tang poetry. First of all, each Tang poem is identified as a literary text, a holistic unit of cultural communication. In each poetic text, Chinese culture is incarnated in the form of artistic ideorealm, which is extra-linguistic and extra-textual aesthetic flavor within Chinese cultural context. To enhance and disseminate Chinese culture, in Tang poetry translation, foreignzing strategy ought to be adopted, namely, ideorealm preserved and transplanted. To achieve this goal, it is imperative to reconstruct source language cultural context. Furthermore, cultural foci play decisive and challenging role in transplanting artistic ideorealm. In line with Peter Newmark's cultural foci theory, supported by Even-Zohar's texteme argument, the author contends that Tang poetry cultural foci are crystallized in images, styles, allusions and culture-specific items. All the above analyses contribute to verifying possibility and necessity of foreignizing strategy.Concerning operation of translation at linguistic level, according to text information unit and operation unit theory advanced by Professor Li Yunxing, the author holds that lexical units are basic points of language shift. All translators are supposed to pay due attention to linguistic discrepancies, and accordingly to hybridize all kinds of techniques including domestication, foreignization and their variations in translating texts. Intra-textual linguistic symbols shift are required to be conducive to extra-textual cultural communication. In constructing target text, target audience's response should be valued, signifying that the new text should be coherent, cohesive and aesthetically equivalent to its source version. In order to endow the target version with beauty in sound, form and sense, the author deliberates on shift of lexical units which cover cultural foci.By providing logical analyses and case studies, double-leveled D&F is posed and justified. Tang poetry is typical literary corpus, so the double-leveled D&F principle can furnish other literary translations with reference.