A Study Of Schema Theory Applied To Image Translation In Classical Chinese Poetry

Robert Frost said:"Poetry is what gets lost in translation", which highlights the difficulty of poetry translation and justifies that poetry translation being the focus of translation study. Condensed in form but profound in sense, classical Chinese poetry is characterized by the adoption of images. The images used in poetry are specific objects instilled with subjective emotions and sentiments and thus serve as manifestations of the poets' observation and unique aesthetic view. Images, which carry with them rich cultural meanings, play a key role in the composition and appreciation of the poetry. However, in translation, the transference of images has turned out to be the most difficult kernel to crack. Scholars at home and abroad have made continuous effort to find the best way to convey the rich culture connotation contained in images.Schema theory, proposed by Bartlett (1932), emphasizes the role of background knowledge and schema (knowledge of structures) in text interpretation. Schema theory explains how readers retrieve or construct meaning from their pre-existed knowledge and past experience. The knowledge which has been acquired previously is called the reader's background knowledge. The structures of the already acquired knowledge are called Schemata (Carrel and Eisterhold,1983).Based on the belief that people come to understand new information by activating their relevant schemata in their mind, schema theory was introduced into the interpretation of reading comprehension process in the 1980s. Furthermore, schema theory was largely applied into the field of foreign language teaching, helping second language learners with their listening, writing, as well as interpretation, etc. While much work has been done to apply schema theory to teaching field, less attention has been paid to the application of schema to translation. Moreover, most translation researches mainly focus on the "results" of translation, evaluating different versions of a certain text from the perspective of reception theory, relevance theory or translation equivalence or discussing the identity of the translator. Professor Yang Zijan(1989) has emphasized the whole translation process which begins with the study of the source language writer to the study of the target language readers' response. He holds that "the central problem of translation study should be the translators' mental pattern and system", and "their special mental activity, which is different from the creation activity of writers, is the research object of translation". As we know, translating process is basically comprised of two steps:comprehension of the source text and expression in the target language. In the comprehension process, the translator needs to construe source text by activating, adjusting or enriching his/her related schemata, while in expression process, the translator should activate or adjust target language readers' related schemata or set up new schemata so as to render the source text correctly and achieve the goal of successful cross-cultural communication. Although the process is rather complicated, it takes place in a transient moment in the mind of the translator and therefore fails to draw the attention of researchers.This paper attempts to apply schema theory to image translation in classical Chinese poetry and check whether schema has a positive influence on image translation. By a comparison of cognitive schemata between the source language and the target language, the author classifies three cases in translation of images in classical Chinese poetry:schema correspondence, schema conflict and schema default, according to which four translating methods are discussed, namely word-for-word translation, literal translation with annotation, substitution and omission. At last, the research finds that schema theory is an effective theory in analyzing translating process. The translator needs to enrich his linguistic, formal and content schema both in SL and TL and try to activate, modify and create the related cognitive schema for TL readers. Among the four translating methods discussed in this thesis, the author is in favor of literal translation with annotation, for it preserves the source language flavor to the utmost and offers the target language reader an opportunity to have a glimpse of the profound Chinese culture.It is hoped that this research method will help to expand the application field of schema theory and provide a new research perspective and practical translating methods for image translation in classical Chinese poetry.