A Study Of English Translation Of Conceptual Metaphors In Mao Zedong's Poems

Poetry,the quintessence of traditional Chinese culture,is a literary treasure of China and even of the whole world,and a good material for studying language.Representing Chinese modern revolution in the style of classical poetry,Mao Zedong's poems have great political,cultural and artistic value.So far,more than 20 English versions of Mao Zedong's poems have been published.Conceptual metaphors are common in Mao Zedong's poems,and the meaning of a metaphor affects the reader's understanding of the whole poem.Therefore,the proper translation of metaphors plays a vital role.Metaphor translation involves the translator's cognition and transformation of metaphor.Although some scholars have carried out research of metaphor translation,they have mainly focused on a detailed comparison between the form and the meaning.In addition,they judge the translation by the reproduction of the rhetorical function of metaphors.Although some theories about metaphor translation have been put forward in the west,they are based on the western languages and are not entirely applicable to Chinese-English translation.The present study identifies the conceptual metaphors in Mao Zedong's 67 poems according to Metaphor Identification Procedures and classifies them into 5types.Then based on the Chinese-English Metaphor Translation Principles put forward by Liu Fagong(2008),this study analyzes the translation of conceptual metaphors in Mao Zedong's 35 poems in different English versions.In order to ensure the authority and representativeness of the translation,this study chooses Mao Zedong's poems and its English versions by Xu Yuanchong,Zhao Zhentao,Gu Zhengkun,Nie Hualing & Engle and Lin Tongduan as the object of study.Because there are fewer poems in the “official” English version,which is not conducive to the collection of corpus,the “official” English version is not selected as the research object.This study employs a qualitative research method to conduct the following three stages.The first step is to analyze the mapping mechanism of conceptual metaphors in Mao Zedong's poems.The second step is to study the translatability of conceptual metaphors.The third step is to analyze the English translation of conceptual metaphors in Mao's poems.The major findings of the study are as follows: Firstly,the conceptual metaphors in Mao Zedong's poems are divided into five categories: Life Metaphor,Time Metaphor,Emotion Metaphor,Natural Phenomenon Metaphor and Politics Metaphor.Secondly,due to the similarity of human language and physical experience,conceptual metaphors have universal features,which form the basis of metaphorical translatability.Therefore,conceptual metaphors in Mao Zedong's poems are translatable to some extent.However,poetry is a certain literary form and in view of cultural differences and literary contexts,metaphors in Chinese poems have their own characteristics,which results in the limitation of translatability.The limitation also results from the fact that some Chinese cultural concepts lack corresponding words or phrases in English.Even though there are corresponding words in Chinese and English languages,they contain different meanings.Thirdly,it is easy to evaluate the quality of English translation of conceptual metaphors in Mao Zedong's poetry according to Liu Fagong's Three Principles for C-E Metaphor Translation through judging whether the metaphorical features are preserved and whether the cultural connotation is lost.It is found that Zhao Zhentao's version is rigorous in expression,for the translator tends to translate the metaphor literally and then add interpretation to make connotations clear to the readers.Gu Zhengkun's is rich in notes and Gu tries to represent the poet's intention to the greatest extent and as a result,fewer metaphorical features are preserved in his version.Both Lin Tongduan and Nie Hualing & Engel are faithful to the original images and good at transferring metaphors to TL,while the difference is that Lin tends to extend the metaphor and compensate for the lost meaning,while Nie Hualing's version is flexible and concise in language.The Three-Beauty Theory put forward by Xu Yuanchong emphasizes that “beauty of meaning” counts most and “beauty of meaning” is achieved on the basis of the similarity of images.In Xu Yuanchong's version,the metaphorical features,on the whole,are preserved well but sometimes the implications are lost due to his pursuit for “beauty of sound and form”.This study proves that the Chinese-English Translation Principle by Liu Fagong(2008)is applicable to the C-E translation of conceptual metaphors in Mao Zedong's poems.It enriches the contrastive study of the similarities and differences between the Chinese and English conceptual systems.Meanwhile,it also broadens the horizon for the English translation research of Mao Zedong's poems.