7.3.3 Zhang Mengjin's translated version
The River Covered with Snow [3]
The last bird has gone from distant hill tops
The last human has vanished from winding trails.
Veiled in silent snow,an old man in bamboo hat
Is fishing alone in the center of rigid river waters.(https://www.daowen.com)
(Translated by Zhang Mengjin)
With regard to Zhang's translation of images in the poem,several cognitive translation strategies of image-G actualization are applied as illustrated below.Firstly,Zhang turns the images of qianshan(myriad mountains)and wanjing(endless roads)into“distant hill tops”and“winding trails”.These two adjectives,“distant”and“winding”,are adopted to graphically demonstrate the boundless of the image of shan(hill tops)and endless of the image of jing(trails).On top of that,it is clear that aesthetic categories of prototypical structure existed in the images of qianshan(myriad mountains)and wanjing(endless roads)is substituted by Zhang on a scale of equivalent prototype of qian(a hundred)and wan(a thousand)in respect to typical Gestalt and aesthetic attributes of holistic image-G.However,faced with the inherently cognitive schema of Zhang's prototypical mental representations,we cannot be sure whether it is necessary to stick to the interpretation in terms of prototype categories.In this sense,Zhang's translation of images of qianshan(myriad mountains)and wanjing(endless roads)can be deemed as practical operation of image-G preservation strategy proposed in last chapter.Regarding the aesthetic elements of interminable presented in the original,it is quite sufficient to manifest them in the rather vague sense of“characteristics”and“typical aspects”in translation version.Rather,we cannot lose sight of the fact that the Gestalt attributes of boundlessness,numerousness and infinitude induced from the non-referentiality of qian(a hundred)and wan(a thousand)is the prominent one that ought to be presented in TT.At this point,Zhang's translation of images of qianshan(myriad mountains)and wanjing(endless roads)fails to convey the key Gestalt attributes of the original.
Besides,Zhang omits the image of guzhou(a lonely boat)in his translation,which is obviously unable to reproduce the interpretative perspective of intertextual Gestalt qualities existed between the images of suoli weng(an old man in straw cloak and bamboo hat)and the image of guzhou(a lonely boat),namely,loftiness and unsulliedness.For the image of suoli weng(an old man in straw cloak and bamboo hat),Zhang literally translates it into“an old man in bamboo hat”,which fails to effectively actualize the gradual relations between imagery system presented in the original artistic picture.Anyhow,the discernible interrelation between the images of guzhou(a lonely boat),suoli(straw cloak and bamboo hat)and weng(an old man)in ST,rather than a random sequence of them in TT,constitutes their hierarchically spatial structure.
With regard to the image-G actualization of rhythmic schemata,except for the third line,the other three lines are rhymes with the Chinese syllable of“s”in their tonal patterns.It is self-evident that the poet adopts the combination of level tones in the third line and oblique tones in the other three lines to achieve the Gestalt attributes of rhythmical effects in the poem.In a sense,the rhythmic characteristics of Zhang's translation contributes to reproducing the original image-G in respect to the rhythmic schemata.As for the syntactical structure(language form),with the purpose of smoothly actualizing the original syntactical schemata in TT,Zhang endows each line in his translation with incomplete meaning group.To be specific,the first line,“the last human has vanished from winding trails”,leaves target readers in suspense,which will genuinely arouse their curiosity about where the man disappears to.And then,the poet reveals the fact in the following line,namely,he“has vanished from winding trails”.Similarly,the third line is also charged with associative significance,that is,since the weather is biting cold,what is the“old man in bamboo hat veiled in silent snow”doing?The last line lets the cat out of the bag,that is,he“is fishing alone in the center of rigid river waters”,which is sufficient to wholly satisfy inquisitive target readers.Considering the vital relations in the connecting link between the preceding and the following among lines,it is easy to see that the Gestalt experiential prototypical interaction of these scenario/scene modes in each line is projected onto the image-G of hyponym hierarchy.In a sense,Zhang's translation is an admirable one to manifest the adaption of image-G based on composite deployment of different scenario/scene modes of the original.It is actually a successful application of image-G modulation strategy proposed in last chapter.However,Zhang'translation leaves something to be desired.There are overmuch adjectives used to modify nouns in Zhang's translation(like“winding”,“distant”,“silent”and“rigid”)that run counter to the brief syntactical structure and succinct language style of the original poem.