Research On The Chinese-English Translation Strategies Of Metaphors In Elegies Of The South From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

The world we live in is filled with metaphors. Newmark has pointed out that three quarters of the English language are metaphoric. Richards, a British rhetorician, insisted that’metaphors are ubiquitous’. Metaphor plays an important role in our daily life. Previous researches were normally from the perspectives of linguistics and translation and metaphor was noted only as a rhetorical means in literature works. However, with the further study of metaphor, people began to recognize the influence metaphor has on the thinking mode of human beings, artistic creation, and language use as well as the cognitive function of metaphor. In the 1980s, Lakoff and Johnson proposed Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Fauconnier and Turner proposed the Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT), which provides a new perspective for metaphor study and presents a new trend of linguistic studies to the study mode of metaphors. It should be pointed out that CBT offers new explanations to the conceptual generation and understanding of metaphors. Based on Mental Space Theory, which was initially created by Fauconnier in 1985, Conceptual Blending Theory has been an important component of cognitive linguistics in its nearly 20 years’development.Elegies of the South is a precious treasure of the prominent Chinese literature, which has significant value in both literature and history. Elegies of the South was composed two thousand years ago. Elegies of the South and The Book of Songs are considered as the two origins of Chinese poetry. With its delicate wording, elegant form and profound theme, Elegies of the South is a piece of classic work being quoted and chanted by many generations. From the 19th century, some translators at home and abroad have begun to translate Elegies of the South into other languages. Elegies of the South, which is famous for its abundance in metaphors, has appealed to many researchers.On the basis of analyzing the metaphors in Elegies of the South, this thesis aims at making a breakthrough in translation strategies of metaphors on the basis of CBT theory, which gives comprehensive and insightful explanation to metaphors used in Elegies of the South. The author summarized the four strategies applied in the metaphor translation in this translation version, which was translated by Xu Yuanchong. The thesis is divided into five chapters:Chapter One gives a brief introduction to the background and the purpose of this research.Chapter Two makes a brief introduction of Elegies of the South and the interpreted version. The current status of the translation of this work at home and abroad was reviewed. The translation of Elegies of the South has drawn extensive attention. However study on the metaphor translation of Elegies of the South is still rare.Chapter Three systematically introduces the meaning, function and optimization principles of Conceptual Blending Theory, and based on which, the research model is proposed, which consists of two independent blending processes in both the source language and the target language. Meanwhile, the metaphors used in Elegies of the South are introduced from its definition and the three important theories. They are classified into orientational metaphor, ontological metaphor and structural metaphor based on Lakoff’s classifications of metaphors.Chapter Four is the analysis of the translated version. According to Xu Yuanchong’s translation, four strategies are summarized. They are:(1) Reproduction of the same image, which means using literal translation when the image can be understood by the target language reader; (2) Metaphor with liberal translation, which refers to adding suitable information to the translation of the metaphor of the source language in order to bridge the gap in the understanding due to different cultural backgrounds; (3) Conversion of metaphor to liberal translation, which means deleting the meaning of the metaphors used in the source language, and giving some explanatory statements of them in the target language; (4) Translating metaphors by using similes, which means changing the metaphors into similes by adding connective words like ’like’or’as’.Chapter Five is the conclusion. Conceptual Blending Theory can help us construct the conceptual blending processes during the translation. According to different source language images, keeping the same image, transferring the image and combining different translation strategies can be used in the translation. Good metaphor translation can help the target language readers to understand the main idea of poems in the right way.