A Study On English Translation Of Zhuang Zi From The Perspective Of Metaphor

In cognitive linguistics,metaphor is a fundamental thinking mode and a cognitive tool.It is a process to understand and experience one thing through another thing,which reflects the human cognitive experience and the construction of the complex conceptual system.Metaphor theory is beneficial to deep explanations on translation,because translators reproduce the source language on the basis of their experimental cognition and thinking transformation.Against this background,this thesis examines the English translations of Zhuang Zi from the perspective of metaphor with three types of research method,namely literature review,case study and comparative analysis.To be specific,this thesis is to investigate the similarities and differences between the four English translations of Zhuang Zi（translated by B.Watson,A.C.Graham,S.Hamill ＆ J.P.Seaton and B.Ziporyn）from the perspective of metaphor at conceptual level,grammatical level and allegorical level.In addition,the causes of these similarities and differences are also analyzed in the thesis.Three research questions are as follows.First,what are the similarities and differences between the four English translations of Zhuang Zi from the perspective of conceptual metaphor? Second,what are the similarities and differences between the four English translations of Zhuang Zi from the perspective of grammatical metaphor? Third,what are the similarities and differences between the four English translations of Zhuang Zi from the perspective of allegorical metaphor? To address the above questions,this thesis compares the source text and target texts of Zhuang Zi on the one hand and the four English translations of Zhuang Zi on the other.At the level of conceptual metaphor,the thesis compares the four English translations of Zhuang Zi from the respects of structural metaphor,orientational metaphor and ontological metaphor.At the level of grammatical metaphor,the thesis compares the four English translations of Zhuang Zi from the respects of nominal metaphor,verbal metaphor and adjective metaphor.At the level of allegorical metaphor,the thesis compares the four English translations of Zhuang Zi from the respects of formal structure and semantic structure.The study suggests that the four English translations of Zhuang Zi share both similarities and differences at conceptual level,grammatical level and allegorical level.First,from the perspective of metaphor at conceptual level,conceptual domains in the source text tend to be reproduced as their superior,equal or subordinate conceptual domains with the same or similar characteristics in the English translations of Zhuang Zi.However,translators have different cognition on characteristics of conceptual domains in the source text.What’s more,translators reproduce characteristics of conceptual domains in the source text to varying degrees.For example,the analysis from the respect of orientational metaphor suggests that there are differences in the extent to which translators recognize and reproduce the orientational concepts.Specifically,the orientational concepts of Center and Periphery in the source text are reproduced with the lowest degree of variation,while the orientational concepts of Far,Near,Up and Down in the source text are reproduced with the highest degree of variation.Second,from the perspective of metaphor at grammatical level,the reproductions of basic grammatical features are more convergent,while the reproductions of creative grammatical features vary a lot.Specifically,the grammatical features of nominal metaphor,verbal metaphor and adjective metaphor are reproduced to varying degrees in different translations.The difference is minor when translators reproduce the grammatical features of nominal metaphor,while there is significant difference in the reproduction of the grammatical features of adjective metaphor.The degree of variation in reproducing the grammatical feature of verbal metaphor,however,lies somewhere in between the two.Third,from the perspective of metaphor at allegorical level,the four-dimensional structure of allegory does not change significantly in the translating process and different translations achieve the evaluative or persuasive function of allegory.However,the allegorical plot image schema is reproduced differently in different English translations.The translators’ interpretations of the elements and attributes of the emotional structure also differ from each other.From the perspective of metaphor at three levels,the different translations share certain similarities.It is because the translators’ reproductions of basic,structural and functional conceptual domains can easily form a common understanding.In addition,the English translations from each metaphorical perspective also reflect some differences.It is because the translators’ interpretations of the source text are influenced by various factors,such as life experience,intellectual details and cognitive processing.The study is expected to widen the theoretical perspective of the study of the English translation of Zhuang Zi and to provide a reference for the translation of classical Chinese literature.