2.1 Images in classic Chinese poetry
In literary studies,the notion“image”is generally considered as a semantic connotation which is easily accessible in various essential elements of classic Chinese poetry,such as words,phrasal idioms,quotations,idiomatic expressions,and figurative expressions.It is also a“mental picture”which appeals to the senses as being both figurative and literal.Generally speaking,images are used to denote an intellectual and emotional complex that evokes a mental picture or recalls a physical sensation(Wang,2013).According to Jiang(2002:61),images are integrated conceptual structures which are mentally perceived and created by a translator through his encyclopedia knowledge,or“the formulation of a non-existing or defamiliar object under his psychological operation of perception and imagination”.Johnson(1987)suggested that images refer to mental images in an author's mind when he is conceiving a literary discourse.The perceiving of images indispensably lies on readers'or perceivers'encyclopedia knowledge and their active perception.In Tabakowska's(1993:25)opinion,images in literature are also called mental images and regarded as the psychological process consisting in the formation in the authors and translators'mind of nonverbal representations of objects and events.
Images,as all the artistic objects and aesthetic qualities of sense perception referred to in a poem,are generally regarded as“poetic imagery”.Stockwell(2002:167)determined a standard definition of poetic imagery.The point of poetic imagery is that it does not use images as ornaments.Rather,the poetic imagery itself is the speech and it is the word beyond formulated languages.It is well acknowledged as the distinctive characteristic of poetic language which is normally associated with figurative languages and metaphorical languages in classic Chinese poetry.It has been conventionally adopted by studies on“figures of speech”involving poetic metaphor,symbolic sign and fable moral(Turner,2002).Figurative language in literary discourse can be appointed as concrete manifestation of imagery on condition that it remains substantially degree of intensification and its main purpose is to realize the aesthetic representation of literary works(Lakoff & Turner,1989).The string or reticular structure formulated by the interaction of images in classical Chinese poetry,also waves into a harmonious,mutual germinal and extension network which plays crucial role in the conveyance of artistic conception at the same time.(https://www.daowen.com)
Langacker(2008)considered images as one of the most important principles in cognitive linguistics.It concerns the process of describing in terms of the focal adjustment how the human being experiences the entity within a scene.As indicated above,images in literary works are anything less than unconventional images which are defined by Langacker in the frame of cognitive linguistics.From the perspective of cognitive psychology,images in literary works are identical to mental pictures which are created in authors'mind to convey thoughts and artistic image.It has its existence within the frame of language,not yet psychological models in human perception,but models manifested in languages(Brone & Vandaele,2009).Images in the translation of classic Chinese poetry not only possess artistic value but also illustrate subjective interpretation.In other words,apart from their linguistic signification,images in the translation of classic Chinese poetry also deliver lexical meaning through translators'mental representation.Translators'perception of images in classic Chinese poetry is a cognitive description of aesthetic reproduction,which is an overall comprehension of images with guidance of a unified theme.The comprehension is deeply rooted in their cognitive environment and aesthetic experience,which is a macro model closely related to their cognitive progression of images in classic Chinese poetry(Brandt,2005).
To summarize,images in classic Chinese poem are equivalent to subjective connotation and emotion of objective language description represented in a specific literary discourse.Literature typically draws support from images to convey integrative conception between authors'subjective emotions with the objective world.In brief,images in literature endow objective imagery of textual situation with subjective feelings.Moreover,as they have emerged so far,images in classic Chinese poetry are not developed independently or in a vacuum from cognitive environment.They facilitate translators in arousing creative thinking through semantic analysis of imagery presentation in textual description.Images act as the prerequisite of translator's subjective world,which displays aesthetic conception of authors'textual description in classic Chinese poetry.Translators'subjective perception of images gives an enormous impetus to their construal of entire discourse due to the fact that images reflect the aesthetic presentation of textual description in classic Chinese poetry.