A Study On The Translation Of Sensory Metaphors In Classical Chinese Poetry

According to Lakoff and Johnson, metaphor is not only a language phenomenon, but a way of thinking and a tool for learning about the world. In the late twentieth century, this cognitive metaphor theory is gradually applied in the study of semantic change and extension.Based on her investigation on English sensory words, Eve Sweester puts forward the viewpoint of "Mind-As-Body", indicating that metaphor is motivated by the correlation between the experience man obtains from the outside world and the inner feelings and cognition.Besides, bodily experience is one of the sources of vocabulary to describe man’s mental state.With the popularization of studies on classical Chinese poetry and its translation, its metaphor study becomes one of the key fields as well.Nevertheless,sensory metaphor, being the basic and essential representative of conceptual metaphor, has not been studied systematically so far. Therefore,this paper, based on the conceptual metaphor theory and its reference to semantic extension study, first tries to do a basic study on sensory metaphors in classical Chinese poetry dating back to the Book of Songs and poetry throughout all dynasties.By analyzing the mapping of sensory metaphors embodied in it and comparing them with relevant English metaphors, corresponding translation methods are then discussed according to Nida’s and Newark’s metaphor translation methods.The study shows, despite of the universality of human cognition and similarity of human perception through the five senses, differences exist in the manifestation of sensory metaphors owing to the influence of different culture and thinking mode. Meanwhile, since poetry translation involves various aspects, such as the pursuit of similarity in form and spirit, even if the mapping is similar in Chinese and English, translation of such metaphors can hardly be equivalent, not to mention those with different mappings or even blank in mapping.By collecting, classifying and analyzing sensory metaphors in classical Chinese poetry as well as their translation versions, some practicable translation methods are concluded, which are basically divided into literal and liberal translation. Literal translation includes such methods as retaining original metaphor and paraphrasing on the lexical level; while liberal translation can be divided into sense transfer and interconnection, sentence constituent transfer, sentence reconstruction and deletion.By the analysis of the mapping and cognitive function of sensory metaphors in classical Chinese poetry, and the discussion on their translation, this paper is aimed at providing a new perspective for the study of Chinese classics and making certain contribution to the comprehension and promotion of traditional Chinese culture.