A Study On The Representation Of Form And Meaning In The English Translation Of Chinese Folk Songs By Wang Hongyin From The Perspective Of Iconicity Principles

Iconicity is one of the most fundamental theories in Cognitive linguistics.Language iconicity refers to the mapping between linguistic structures and conceptual structures.From the perspective of cognitive linguistics,language is shaped on the basis of people's bodily experience and their cognitive process of the real world.Therefore,the language form and meaning are interdependent.In recent years,scholars at home and abroad have conducted various researches on iconicity theories and made some achievements,which paves the way for the interdisciplinary researches on it.Based on a summary and integration of iconicity principles put forward by previous scholars,this thesis will focus on sound iconicity,quantitative iconicity,sequential iconicity,distance iconicity,symmetrical iconicity,marked iconicity and metaphorical iconicity and choose folk songs and the translations in Chinese Folk Songs and Their English Tranlations by Wang Hongyin to study the representation of form and meaning in his English translation of Chinese folk songs at the level of sound,lexis,syntax and text.Chinese folk songs,as a kind of folk literature,originate from people's life and reflect authors' cognition of the world.The frequent use of onomatopoetic words,exclamatory words,homophonic puns,rhyme schemes,reduplicated words,parallel and antithesis structure,long and short lines,exaggerated expressions,metaphors and intertextuality demonstrates the representation of iconicity principles at various linguistic levels and sometimes one specific linguistic structure can involve several iconicity principles.To study the English translation of Chinese folk songs under the guidance of the above-mentioned iconicity principles,it can not only reflect the mapping between form and meaning of the source language but also examine to what extent the form and meaning in the source text are represented in the target text,thus in turn proving and revealing the motivation and explanatory power of iconicity principles.Iconicity principles,which are the basic working mechanism for the creation of Chinese folk songs,can guide translators to obtain the authors' cognitive styles,conceptual structures,purpose of composition and emotions and thoughts.The translation principles proposed under the guidance of iconicity principles are of practical value in helping to achieve equivalent iconic effects in the target language.