A Research On The Image Of The Fox In The English Translation Of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi From The Perspective Of The Theory Of Contexting

The fox,a creature between the human being,the beast,the monster and the immortal,has always been the embodiment of Chinese authors' various cognitions of the world.Its complexity is perfectly shown in a collection of tales—Liao Zhai Zhi Yi.This book was written by the Qing scholar Pu Songling,who projected his opinions on the feudal society and humanity in a humorous way.After the publication of the compilation,many translators started introducing these touching or inspiring stories to every corner of the world.There is also a trend of studying this Chinese classic work,which is very encouraging.The thesis is a study on the image of the fox in Giles's,Quong's,and Minford's translations of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi.To study the translation of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi,a Chinese classic containing much implicit information,from the perspective of the theory of contexting is necessary.On the one hand,it can inspire translators and scholars to establish effective cross-cultural communication,especially that between high-context culture and low-context culture.On the other hand,it can help foreigners understand the cognitions of ancient Chinese scholars,which is important for the spread of Chinese classics to the world.The theory of contexting was proposed by the American anthropologist Edward T.Hall in his book Beyond Culture.He observed how people communicated and behaved in different cultures and classified the way people organized information.In his classification are five sets of categories of events.They are the subject or activity,the situation,one's status,past experience,and culture.People's perception of the world is influenced by these dimensions.Another two most famous concepts are high-context culture and low-context culture.The theory was later developed by David Katan,a professor of English Language and Translation.He applied the theory to translation studies and stated that situational context,culture context,and cognitive context are all vital to the process of translation.Katan identified three pairs of communication patterns,and they are formal/informal communication,expressive/instrumental communication,and under/overstatement.The study applies the observational method,induction,and comparative study,finding that the three translators used different methods of translation and different patterns of translation.Besides,the images of fox in the texts and paratexts of three English editions differ widely.Minford used overstatement to make a double-sided reconstruction,and he applied foreignzing translation and explanational translation.Quong preferred expressive communication,and she applied the impressionist approach,semantic translation and made syntactical readjustment.Giles 's informal communication can be demonstrated by his foreignizing translation as well as his rewriting and omission of the original text.The fox in Minford's edition is the embodiment of lust and sexuality;the fox in Quong's edition is the symbol of femininity and maternity;the fox in Giles's edition is the incarnation of purity and altruism.This finding was made through comparative study and induction.Though they created different images of the fox in their English editions,they still have many things in common.They were all influenced by the British culture,and they all respected the culture context in the source text.Their translations were influenced by their past experience and statuses.Meanwhile,Giles,Quong,and Minford knew how to guide readers' cognitive context through paratexts and let them better understand the situational context in the texts.All their decisions served for the subjects they wanted to present.