Construction of a Modal of Metonymy Chains in Translation of Chinese Classics

According to the conceptual metonymy theory of cognitive linguistics, the relationship between the target text and the source text can be interpreted as a type of metonymy, which is still left unexplored in Chinese classics with various types of metonymies used in the original text. The result of this study shows that the strategies used in translating Chinese classics are influenced by the complexity of metonymy and the purpose of translation; the translation process of Chinese classics can be depicted as a model of three-segment metonymy chains, namely the metonymic relation between source text (ST) and ST culture, the metonymic relation between source text and target text, as well as the metonymic relation between target text (TT) and ST culture & TT culture, which is evenly constructed with the adoption of amplification translation strategy. By shedding light on the understanding of metonymies in Chinese classics, this paper will provide new perspectives and ideas for translation theory research as well as reference for the application of translation strategies.