A Corpus-aided Study of Translating Metaphorical Mind Style and Literary Re-characterization: A Case Study of Du Liniang inThe Peony Pavilion

Mind style is an indispensable part of characterization. Drawing on the Chinese-English parallel corpus of The Peony Pavilion and its sub-corpus of metaphorical mind style, this paper investigates the operational norms observed by Cyril Birch and Wang Rongpei when they translate the ego, id, and super-ego types of metaphorical mind style of Du Liniang from Chinese into English. The results show that 1) transplantation and explicitation are the most frequently observed operational norms in translation; 2) Birch prefers transplantation and has constructed a sincere, restless but reserved Du Liniang similar to that in the source text, whereas Wang favors explicitation, and has reshaped Du Liniang as a bolder, more straightforward and sensuous girl than that in the source text; 3) the same metaphorical mapping mechanism accounts for two translators’ common choice of transplantation and explicitation, however, their different views on translating images result in different priorities of operational norms and thus reconstructing different characters of Du Liniang.