A Study On Image Actualization In English Translation Of Color Terms Of Tang Poetry From The Perspective Of Palmer’s Cultural Linguistics

American anthropologist Gary B. Palmer published his work Towards a Theory of Cultural Linguistics. Palmer’s Cultural Linguistics is based on cognitive linguistics, and it adds cultural elements into imagery study. Moreover, Palmer regards imagery as the core concept of Cultural Linguistics. He puts forward that imagery is just like a window, through which the inner world and thinking mode of the language users from different nations can be taken a glance.Poetry is the essence of language, while image is the soul of poetry. The connotations and affections carried in poetry frequently root in concrete images, thus it turns out to be crucial in poetry aesthetics through construing the images, which is also the difficult point in translation. Tang poetry is taken as the treasure of Chinese culture and it employs various images.Language is the expression vector and the mapping of its culture, besides color terms are an indispensable part of language. With a variety of color images, the poets depict a colorful world in their eyes. All the colors in Tang poetry were put in good use either to depict landscape or to express the poet’s sentiment. They are so varied and graceful that they contribute a lot to the irresistible artistic beauty of Tang poetry.Although there have been plenty of studies on the translation of Tang poetry, there is little research on image actualization of color terms in Tang poetry. With the conception of image in Palmer’s Cultural Linguistics, the thesis compares and analyzes the image actualization of the color terms in Tang poetry and discusses the strategies of the image translation. Image actualization is a complex process, so the translators should master cross-cultural consciousness, and they should not only try to convey the image of the original text, but also should consider the readers’feeling and understanding. In the process of image actualization, the translators should adopt varied methods and strategies flexibly, and manage the relationship between the parts and the whole.To sum up, perfect image actualization is helpful for the readers to construe the original works and understand the culture of source language. Meanwhile, it can convey the real aesthetic experience which can be sensed by the readers from target language.