A Study On Gary Snyder’s English Translation Of Cold Mountain Poems From The Perspective Of Eco-translatology

Cold Mountain Poems are pregnant with the traditional Chinese classic philosophical thoughts,especially Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Their influence is spread far into America, wherethey enjoy unprecedented popularity. Under such circumstances, it comes as no surprise that theyhave been translated by a lot of American translators competitively, among whom, Gary Snyder isindisputably the most outstanding, for, of all the versions of Cold Mountain Poems, only his hasgained the most acceptance and recognition on the foreign land.In this thesis, a detailed analysis of the twenty four Cold Mountain Poems translated by GarySnyder is carried out from the perspective of Eco-translatology, in the hope of providing someenlightenment about why the translator selected only twenty four Cold Mountain Poems fortranslation and why, of all the versions of Cold Mountain Poems, only his, was so extolled by thetarget readers, and thus putting into practice the theory of Eco-translatology to test its feasibility andinterpretability.The year2008witnessed the birth of the theory of Eco-translatology, which takes an ecologicalapproach to translation studies from the perspective of ecology, and reckons the nature oftranslation to be the activity of a translator’ selective adaptation and adaptive selection in a specifictranslational eco-environment.The thesis is composed of five chapters. The introductory chapter includes the background,significance and object of the thesis. The second chapter centers on the literature review, mainlyincluding previous researches on Eco-translatology and Gary Snyder’s English translation of ColdMountain Poems. Then, in the next chapter, the theoretical tool of the thesis, Eco-translatology, isdiscussed in simple terms, covering the origin of Eco-translatology, the interpretability ofEco-translatology as well as some core concepts in Eco-translatology. The fourth chapter, as the keycomponent of the thesis, makes a detailed analysis of Gary Snyder’s English translation of ColdMountain Poems from the perspectives of selective adaptation and adaptive selection as proposed inEco-translatology. The perspective of selective adaptation covers natural, social, cultural andindividual elements—all constituting the eco-environment to which Gary Snyder had to adaptbefore he finally selected only those twenty four Cold Mountain Poems, while the perspective ofadaptive selection involves the linguistic (lexical, syntactic and rhetorical), cultural andcommunicative dimensions. The last chapter, the conclusion, comes to the point that the translationby Gary Snyder fully embodies his remarkable adaptation and selection in accordance with thespecific eco-environmental elements and above all boasts the highest degree of holistic selectiveadaptation and adaptive selection, thus leading to extraordinary popularity among the target readers and flourishing in translational eco-environment in line with the essence of Eco-translatology.Besides, some limitations and deficiencies of the research are presented so as to encourage morescholars to deepen and broaden the analysis of Gary Snyder’s English translation of Cold MountainPoems under the framework of Eco-translatology.