Abstract:Metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon but also people’s way of thinking. The history of the study of metaphor in Western countries is very long and can be traced back to more than 2000 years ago when Aristotle put forward the definition of metaphor. In the 1980s, the publication of Metaphors We Live By has led to the “metaphormania” in linguistic fields. Many linguists do specific research about metaphor from the terms of cognition, function and conceptualism and have achieved many goals. When it comes to metaphor translation, scholars have practiced a lot and find out many translation principles and skills of metaphor. However, there are still few articles both domestic and overseas about how to translate metaphors in English poetry. The accuracy of poetical metaphors can influence readers’ understanding of the poets’ ideas to a great degree. This thesis takes American famous imagist Emily Dickinson’s poems as example and divides poetical metaphors into three types: phonological metaphor, lexical metaphor and textual metaphor. Comparing different versions of Emily Dickinson’s poems, this thesis tries to find out the different translation methods poets used and conclude common translation methods which can be used in translating English poetry. Hope this thesis can do some help in translating English poetry into Chinese versions.
Keywords: poetical metaphor, translation skills, Emily Dickinson, image
摘要:隐喻不仅是一种语言现象，更是人们的思维方式。西方对隐喻的研究由来已久，最早可以追溯到两千多年前亚里士多德对隐喻的研究。上世纪八十年代，《我们赖以生存的隐喻》一书发表后，学界掀起一股“隐喻热”，语言学家们从认知、功能、概念等角度对隐喻进行了详细研究并取得了不少成果。在隐喻翻译方面，学者们也实践和概括出了不少翻译原则和技巧。但就英语诗歌中的隐喻如何翻译的问题，国内外的研究还不多。诗歌中的隐喻翻译的精准与否对读者理解作者想要表达的思想有着至关重要的影响。本文以美国著名的意象派诗人艾米丽狄金森的诗歌为例，将诗歌隐喻分为：语音隐喻、词汇隐喻和语篇隐喻；从狄金森诗歌的不同译本中比较不同的隐喻翻译手法，概括出诗歌隐喻的一般翻译方法，希望对今后英诗的汉译有所帮助。
关键词：诗歌隐喻；翻译技巧；艾米丽·狄金森；意象
