On Tang Poetry Translation From The Perspective Of Cultural Schema Theory

Since the implementation of Chinese culture “going out” strategy,more and more literary works have been translated and introduced to the world.It is an important means to strengthen the cultural influence and spread the literary works of our country.Tang poetry,as a representative genre of classical Chinese literature,its translation and introduction can help the world know more about the splendid and long-standing national culture of China.The studies of C-E translation of Tang poetry started in the west,and Chinese scholars began to do researches on it in about 1970 s.In the early times,the studies of C-E translation of Tang poetry are relatively subjective.With the continuous development of modern western research theories,more scientific perspectives have been adopted to the C-E translation studies of Tang poetry,which makes them more objective and rigorous.However,on the whole,the C-E translation of Tang poetry still needs to be studied in depth so as to make them more systematic and scientific.Cultural Schema Theory is a branch of Schema Theory and it is a relatively new theory.Cultural schema is the mental structure concerning culture,a knowledge organizing model on culture based on prior experience.There are three matching patterns in the transference of cultural schema: namely,the correspondence of cultural schema,the overlap of cultural schema and the default of cultural schema.This thesis applies the Cultural Schema Theory to the study of C-E translation of Tang poetry.Professor Xu Yuanchong’s rendering 300 Tang Poems(2007)is chosen as a case and the cultural schemata contained in it are classified by the author.Then through qualitative analysis,this thesis summarizes the effective translation methods,skills and strategies in the translation of cultural schemata in Tang poetry with an aim to shed light on the practice of Tang poetry translation.It is found that the cultural schemata in 300 Tang Poems can be divided into four categories: ecological cultural schema,material cultural schema,social cultural schema and religious cultural schema.Through the analysis of some examples,it can be concluded that transliteration,literal translation,annotation,free translation and substitution methods and skills as well as the domestication and foreignization are used in dealing with three matching patterns of cultural schema correspondence,cultural schema overlap and cultural schemadefault.Under the guidance of the Cultural Schema Theory,this thesis attempts to broaden the research perspective of this theory,enrich the study of C-E translation of Tang poetry,and provide a certain reference for Tang poetry’s translation.