A Study of Simile Translation—With Reference to the Translation of Zhu Ziqing's Prose

Simile is one of the most fundamental and commonly used rhetorical devices, however, with the rise and development of modern studies in metaphor, the study of simile was gradually marginalized, and subsequently, that of simile translation was attached little importance as well. this study, adopting the qualitative and the quantitative methods, explores translation strategies of simile from the aspects of structure, function and type by analyzing similes selected from Zhu Ziqing's five typical works of lyric prose. The result shows that if the similes are more typical and usually serve as post-modifiers, the separation between semantic analogies are much wider, the more literal translation and image retention will be applied. On the contrary, translation methods will be much more diverse. This study aims to explicate the relationship between simile features and translation strategies and provide reference for the translation of rhetorical devices in practice.