A Study On The Reproduction Of Foregrounding Features In W.C.Williams' Poetry Translation

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) is recognized as one of the most innovative and influential poets in the history of American poetry in the twentieth century. Deeply rooted in the American mainland, his poetry contains concise words, various forms, strong color and abundant themes, forming the unique style and successfully testifying his claim "No ideas but in thing". Due to the fact that Williams tries to find new themes, and also pursues the renovation of language and distinctive expressions, he develops a school of his own on poetic writing, with the ways of expression of poetry being greatly expanded.As an important theory in stylistics, the foregrounding theory is originated from painting.It protrudes the artistic image from its background so as to attract more attention from the appreciator. Foregrounding refers to the deviant ways of expression which are intended to realize specific purposes, unique effects and certain themes. It is Prague School that first applies it into the study of linguistics and poetics. Poetry is a literary form which exhibits foregrounding features to the greatest degree, therefore, the present research studies the theoretical and practical significance of foregrounding and the effectiveness of the application of the foregrounding theory in translation by taking the poetry as materials.Based on the foregrounding theory and combined foregrounding with poetry translation,the research analyses the reproduction of foregrounding features in poetry translation by way of a descriptive method. The study aims to make the following explorations: First, it makes a previous study on foregrounding theory and Williams' poetry and its translation; Second, it deals with the reproduction of foregrounding in poetry translation and its aesthetic effectiveness via two means of foregrounding: qualitative foregrounding and quantitative foregrounding. Last,by analyzing the poems which are full of distinctive foregrounding features, it illustrates the fact that linguistics and literature supplement with each other, and that art and aesthetics bring out the best in each other, aiming to enrich the study of Williams' poetry and provide a new horizon for poetry translation.The study has realized the following significance: On the one hand, studying the poetry from the perspective of foregrounding is conducive to excavating the artistic connotations and features of poetry. On the other hand, the foregrounding theory has a strong applicability to the representation of foregrounding features in poetry translation.