This paper focuses on three questions:
(1) How does cultural context affect artistic conception reconstruction?
(2) Which strategies did translators adopt in reproduce artistic conception?
(3) How to reconstruct the artistic conception of Yi’an Ci better?
2. Literature Review
2.1 Culture Context
2.1.1 Review of Culture Context
Malinowski (1923) classified contexts into two groups: context of culture and context of situation. According to Halliday (1989), Context means the total environment where a text unfolds. He put forward five periods in the context continuum in 1994, and the third level is the context of culture. Firth (1957) pided contexts into cultural context, situational context and linguistic context. In a word, many scholars have paid attention to the context of culture. Hu Zhuanglin (1998) classified contexts as situational context and cultural context.
Culture is a complex and vague concept, so it is understandable that the definition of cultural context varies from person to person. Hu zhuanglin (1998) asserted that cultural context is the product of social environment. Nida (2001) believed cultural context is a context which includes cultures of both sides and the specific non-linguistics circumstance of communication. According to Pauline Harris (2005), values, beliefs, views and endorsed behaviors compose the cultural context of a specific culture.
2.1.2 Review of Culture Context in Translation
Translation is a cross-culture communication between original author, translator and reader. The original information is coded, transmitted and decoded from one culture to another, so the translation process is inevitably affected by cultural context. Newmark (1988) held the view that context is the most important factor in translation. If a translator wants to understand the original text, he or she must understand the context first, because the context will influence the translation phonologically, lexically, grammatically and so on. Generally speaking, cultural context pays more attention to the communication between original language and target language, and focuses on the conveying of cultural information. Cultural context often judges whether the English version is conform to the target culture.
Ci Poems are strongly culture-loaded. When they are translated into English, translators are easily bothered by culture absence. There are not always corresponding expressions of Chinese words in English. There are even conflicts in the associative meanings. In order to ensure that the English versions of Yi’an Ci are easily read and their beauty of artistic conception is accessible, translators must take full account of the differences between Chinese and English cultures in historical traditions, social psychology, value system and thinking models.
2.2 Artistic Conception of Yi’an Ci
2.2.1 Overview on the Artistic Conception of Yi’an Ci
With the popularity of Ci poems, comments and researches on Ci built their system gradually. In Qing Dynasty, Wang Guowei finished Ren Jian Ci Hua (人间词话), which was a milestone of Ci poems study. Ren Jian Ci Hua (人间词话) insisted that artistic conception is the most important of Ci Poems. If a Ci Poem can build a nice artistic conception, it will be much more excellent than other Ci Poems. Although it is hard to reach an agreement on the definition of artistic conception, Chinese traditional literary theory stress the coexistence of everything and me, in other words, the unity of objective things and subjective emotions. Li Zehou (1979) holds the view that artistic conception is constituted by feelings, reasons, forms and spirit. Zhu Guangqian (1984) considers artistic conception as a blend of feelings and images. According to Zong Baihua (2004), artistic conception is a reflection of human life and universe in people’s mind.
The author didn’t find any foreign articles about the artistic conception of Yi’an Ci in CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) or any foreign books in Nanjing Library. But there are many domestic papers about the artistic conception of Yi’an Ci published after 2000. All these papers can be pided into two groups. 以诗译诗文化语境下易安词英译的意境再造(3):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_20124.html