Metaphor Translation In Chang Hen Ge From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor

With the rapid development of the economy,China has put forward the significant policy of cultural construction in the course of heading for modern civilization and communicating with foreign countries.English translation of Chinese ancient poetry is an essential step in the Sino-foreign cultural exchange.As one of the most representative long poems in the Tang poetry(poems of Tang Dynasty which existed from 617 to 907AD),Chang Hen Geis inevitable to attract people's attentionand was translated into English and spread all over the world.Among them,the metaphor that abounds in Chinese culture is the top priority,which can be seen as the soul of translation.On the occasion of above background information,this thesis with conceptual metaphor as its theoretical basis,taking the metaphors in BaiJuyi's long poem Chang Hen Ge and the corresponding English versions which were translated by XuYuanchong and Yang Xianyi couples respectively as its corpus,aims to compare the metaphor translation'of two versions and conclude the criteria and relevant strategies of metaphor translation of Chinese ancient poetry.The research has the following discoveries:Firstly,because of different social backgrounds,social cultures,customs and religions,metaphors have various connotations.Furthermore,Chinese ancient poetry itself was embedded with abundant content,among which the metaphors contain culture with Chinese characteristics.Therefore,it is necessary to comprehend the historical background and emotional expression of poets,which establish the foundationof poetry translation.Secondly,the standards must be proposed in the comparison of two English versions.The research standards of metaphor translation in this thesisarethe accordance of information and meaning that Chinese and English metaphorical objects convey and the concord of common cognition of metaphorical objects and image consistency of the two languages.The purpose of metaphor translation is to find the most optimal transformation.The conclusion can be drawn from the research that is as follows:(1)Before the translation of ancient poetry,it is necessary and important for translators to collect background information of the poetry as meticulous as possible.And the translation of metaphors goes the same way.(2)It is infeasible to translate the surface meaning of metaphors during the translation of ancient poetry.(3)Common cognition of metaphorical objects and image consistency are crucial in the course of metaphor translation.(4)Because of the unconformity between metaphorical connotation and metaphors'surface meaning,literal translation usually fails to function.(5)Don't go for blind faith of authority in the translation.Applying conceptual metaphor to analyze the English versions of Chang Hen Ge,this thesis will help people to understand the mapping mechanism ofconceptual metaphor,which reveals the practical value of metaphor translationactivities and promotes the exchange between different cultures.