A Study On The Translation Of Metaphors In Eileen Chang’s Self-translated Novel The Golden Cangue

The conceptual metaphor theory proposed by Lakeoff and Johnson,it changes the study of metaphor from rhetoric to cognitive linguistics.Conceptual metaphor theory holds a concept that metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon,but also a basic cognitive way for human beings to understand the world.Metaphor,as a bridge connecting language and culture,can be used to explore the key of a certain culture.There has been a lot of researches on Eileen Chang’s authorial identity,but there is still have researching space to explore Eileen Chang’s translation activities as a translator,especially self-translation.This paper mainly focuses on qualitative analysis,taking the self-translated version of Eileen Chang’s The Golden Cangue as the analysis text.First of all,this paper classified the metaphor in The Golden Cangue according to the conceptual integration theory,and divides the structural metaphors in The Golden Cangue into“body metaphor”,“animal metaphor” and “plant metaphor”.The orientational metaphor mainly include “up and down metaphor”.The ontological metaphor is mainly “entity and substance metaphor”.This study first integrates the metaphor types in The Golden Cangue,then analyzes the metaphor translation in both Chinese and English texts,and futher summarizes the tranlation strategies adopted by Eileen Chang.Through the analysis of the translation examples of conceptual metaphor,there are mainly three cases in the translation: the translation retains the conceptual metaphor in the original;the translation replaces the conceptual metaphor in the original;the translation removes the the conceptual metaphor in the original.Through the cognitive interpretation and translation strategy analysis of metaphor in different cognitive domains in the original text,it is found that Eileen Chang considers the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western languages and cultures in translation of The Golden Cangue.At the same time,under the influence of her own subjectivity,she adopts the translation strategy of literal translation,free translation,zero translation or the combination of literal translation and free translation in different situations.The application of conceptual metaphor theory to metaphor translation in this study can broaden our translation thinking,and it is also expected that this study can provide some references for future studies on the literary value of Eileen Chang’s works,especially her self-translated works.