Reconstructing Cultural Images In The English Translations Of Mudan Ting From The Perspective Of Image-Schema Theory

Mudan Ting,written by Tang Xianzu(1550–1616)in the late sixteenth century,is an immortal masterpiece in Chinese classical literature.It has already reached the summit of Chinese classical drama in both ideological contents and artistic achievements,and it is a world-renowned drama along with Shakespeare‘s Romeo and Juliet.Mudan Ting is replete with rich and distinctive images which have permeated with profound Chinese culture and in turn these cultural images constitute the distinctive characteristics of Mudan Ting.Image is a phenomenon in which the object is presented in the subject consciousness after the object being appreciated by the subject;it combines individual aesthetics and symbolization of cultural preference.Cultural images are images of carrying cultural implications;they permeate into words that contain broad and deep connotations,conveying a kind of aesthetics.The translation of cultural images can be considered as a mirror of the whole translation activities.It can be said that how to translate cultural images is about how to translate Chinese culture,or the translation of cultural images is how to inherit and transmit Chinese culture.Therefore,to further study Mudan Ting from the perspective of cultural images is very meaningful,which can not only promote Chinese classics but also enhance the soft power of our national culture.This thesis aims to use the Image-Schema theory of Zhao Yanfang as the main theoretical framework.The theory holds that people not only recognize individual things,but also have recognition with the relationship between things.After organizing these relationships repeatedly,Image-Schema is formed.Moreover,this thesis analyzes the functions of the Image-Schema theory in the translation of cultural images from three aspects: image transmission,image transformation as well as image reactualization with a view to researching reconstruction of cultural images in the English translations of Mudan Ting.In the process of translating cultural images,reconstructing is a step by step process from decoding to recoding,based on comprehensive understanding,including semantics,culture and aesthetics.The Image-Schema theory not only provides a fresh research perspective for translating cultural images,but also plays a substantive role in guiding the translation of cultural images.Cultural images in Mudan Ting include garden images,animal images,dream images and so on.By closing reading,the thesis selects specific examples of cultural images from the source text of Mudan Ting,and selects the corresponding English expressions from versions of Wang Rongpei,Zhang Guangqian and Cyril Birch as the corpus of the research.The methodology of this thesis is combined quantitative and qualitative research methods.The quantitative research is a comparative analysis of the translation strategies and translation styles of three translators on cultural images in the English translations of Mudan Ting,in order to explore the translation strategies of reconstructing cultural images.The qualitative research reveals connotation differences between Chinese and western cultural images by applying the main notions of the Image-Schema theory,in order to explore the explanatory functions of the Image-Schema theory on the translations of cultural images.The research findings consist of four parts.Firstly,a comparative analysis of three versions shows that there are many wrong things when cultural images in the source text are translated into the target text,such as language redundancy,cultural default,vacant images and reconstruction errors and so on.All these phenomena are closely related to the differences of language expressions between English and Chinese,three translators‘ aesthetic experience and cultural preference.Secondly,three translators have different focuses in the strategy of image transmission.When reconstructing garden images,Wang Rongpei mainly conveys the rhetorical effects of them;Zhang Guangqian and Birch pay attention to conveying images in the source language.When reconstructing animal images,three translators focus on transmitting cultural information of image.When reconstructing dream images,Wang Rongpei and Zhang Guangqian mainly convey the textual content of images;Birch mainly expresses the cultural connotations of images in the source language.Thirdly,when cultural images cannot be directly transmitted,three translators will transform the metaphorical meanings of images or represent cultural characteristics of images.When reconstructing garden images,Wang Rongpei lays emphasis on themetaphorical meanings of them;Zhang Guangqian and Birch emphasize on reproducing cultural characteristics of them in the source language.When reconstructing animal images,Wang Rongpei focuses on the metaphorical meanings of them;Zhang Guangqian and Birch mainly fill vacant images.Three translators all focus on metaphorical meanings when reconstructing dream images.Last but not least,in the process of reconstructing cultural images,image transmission is the first step;the second is image transformation and image reactualization is the last.There is a progressive relationship between them.Provided that image transmission and image transformation can accurately convey cultural images of the source language,no image reactualization is needed.Only when different cultural images between the source language and the target language refer to the same concept or the same thing,can image reactualization be carried out.This translation strategy can reserve a certain space for the readers to imagine and appreciate.In addition,in terms of image reactualization,the translators may choose different reconstruction strategies due to different purposes and motives.Wang Rongpei tries his best to make readers in the target language appreciate cultural images as far as possible with an aim to be vivid in description and faithful in meaning.He adopts the strategy of English metrical poetry to keep rhythm and rhyme of the source text in the translation of lyrics and verses.Zhang Guangqian adopts the strategy of blank verse in the translation of lyrics and verses for the sake of conveying cultural implications of images.Birch tries his best to preserve cultural images in the source text and does not destroy the aesthetics and the flavor of images in the source text with the aim of faithfulness.