The English Translation Of Cultural-Default Imagery In Classical Chinese Poetry

Poetry translation is a greatly difficult problem in literary translation. A poet often adopts imagery with rich national cultural connotations in his works, which makes the translation of poetry imagery closely related with culture. Meanwhile, he tends to omit explanations of some cultural information which is self-evident to all of his intended readers under the presupposition that they share the common cultural background with him. Thus, cultural-default imagery arises naturally, which is particularly obvious in classical Chinese poetry.However, nations differ from each other in terms of cultural traditions. The mutual understanding between the writer and his intended readers could hardly be preserved in the communication between the translator and his target readers. Divergent opinions exist on the processing of cultural-default imagery in poetry translation: one group holds that it is reasonable for the translator to concentrate on the intention of the poet, leaving the cultural-default imagery aside; the other group proposes that since one of the basic objectives of translation is to promote the communication and interaction between different nations, the translator is expected to transmit the cultural-default information as much as possible.Based on the main concepts and research methods of the reception theory, this thesis is devoted to the analysis of the initiative role of the reader, the horizon of expectations and the relationship between reception and culture. With the basic instruction on the aesthetic standards of classical Chinese poetry, the paper suggests that the translator must take the aesthetic activity of the reader into account and select the proper translation measure which could well represent the aesthetic value of the original work. Besides, the paper clarifies the status and qualification of the translator and points out constrains of the reception theory such as its over-emphasis on the role of the reader. The final conclusion is that the correct cultural attitude of the translator is to promote cultural communication, and the translator should not only be bilingually competent but also biculturally competent.In addition, a lot of examples are cited here for the analysis and comparison of different translation approaches to the cultural-default imagery, including literal translation, textual annotation, semantic translation, image replacement, deletion and servile translation, with the purpose of serving as a reference in practical translation.