Cultural Schema Theory And The Translation Of Mao Zedong's Poetry

With the rapid development of globalization and frequent cooperation among different countries, cross-cultural communication is becoming more and more important. In promoting cross-linguistic and cross-cultural communication, cultural schema theory may prove an important theory in literary translation for it is conducive to better understanding of another culture and can ensure more effective transference of complex cultural implications. Literary translation, especially poetry translation, is of great importance in transferring distinctive cultural images and connotations to another culture. Mao Zedong's poetry, has been attracting numerous foreign readers, most of whom will be messengers of Chinese culture either consciously or unconsciously. As a result, the analysis of the feasibility of application of the cultural schema theory to the translation of Mao Zedong's poetry is of much significance. The aim of this thesis is to prove the feasibility of the application of the cultural schema theory to the translation of Mao's poetry. In the research, the following questions are answered:1) In what ways can cultural schema theory be applied in the process of translating? 2) What are the cultural schemas in Mao's poetry? 3) How can the cultural schema theory be used to improve the effectiveness of the translation of Mao's poetry? Schema, a psychological concept, refers to a chunk of knowledge accumulated and updated with past experience. Schema theory has been widely applied to studies in philosophy, cognitive psychology, linguistics and artificial intelligence. It is significant in analyzing the process of language learning, especially reading comprehension. On its basis, researchers have developed effective approaches of processing information:top-down processing and bottom-up processing. The cultural schema theory is a comparatively new theory. Cultural schema, the pre-existing mental structures about customs, habits, tradition in a particular culture that was learned from past experiences, forms the basis of this theory. Cultural schema plays an important role in communication, especially in cross-cultural communication. And cultural schema theory can be effectively applied to the translating process, especially the translation of Chinese traditional poetry.Mao Zedong's poetry embodies plentiful cultural schemas, among which the thesis analyzes three typical categories:allusions, ecologic images, and fuzzy numerals. These three categories of cultural schema are rich in their cultural implication and difficult to deliver to another culture. Consequently, there are some ineffective interpretations and even misinterpretations in some English versions of Mao Zedong's poems.By analyzing the decoding and re-encoding of cultural schemas, the author finds that the cultural schema theory is very useful and effective in facilitating the translation of Mao's poetry. The translator should possess and activate the related schemas positively, enrich or adjust his/her cultural schemas so as to decode the source text appropriately, and re-encode a text that can effectively activate target readers'pre-existing cultural schemas and help them build up new cultural schemas. The strategies of domesticating and foreignizing are both effective in rendering Mao's poetry, the latter possibly more frequently used in delivering distinctive cultural schemas.