Abstract Chinese couplet derives from Lushi (a poem of eight lines, each containing five or seven characters, with a strict tonal pattern and rhyme scheme) and boasts a history of over a thousand years. With pleasant sound, artistic appearance, and concise structure, it has owned its fame among all ages and different kinds of working fields. Chinese couplet, under the rush of translating Chinese classics into English and with the establishment of Chinese Couplet Society, has been translated by dedicated literary and artistic workers into English in large quantities in recent decades. However, great differences exist in the two languages of Chinese and English, posing daunting challenges on literature translating. Although there are enormous translatable elements in terms of semantics, when it comes to character pattern and speech sound, there exist myriad elements that are untranslatable. Among few books studying how to best translate Chinese couplet into English, Preliminaries to Chinese Antithetical Couplets and Their Translation into English is one with great achievements. Though most of my cases are drawn from this book, this thesis is to find out those pure aesthetic elements belonging only to Chinese that are lost when translated into English in terms of form, sound and sense. Thus, with the presentation of the pure beauty of Chinese language, more and more people will fall in love with Chinese couplet as well as Chinese culture.42981

Key words: Chinese Couplet;     Character Pattern;     Speech Sounds;     Artistic conception;     Untranslatability

摘要对联从律诗中的对偶句发展而来，至今已有上千年的历史。由于其短小凝练，内涵丰富，形式优美，声律悦耳，艺术性强的特点，自产生以来，就不断得到发展与推广，现已成为老少皆宜、雅俗共赏的文学艺术形式。随着典籍英译的热潮和“中华楹联学会”的成立，越来越多的优秀文艺工作者不辞辛劳，翻译了许多精美的中国对联。然而，中英两种语言差异较大，文学作品的译介困难重重。国内虽然有大量研习赏析对联的著作，但探索对联英译的文本资料甚是缺乏+优尔"文'论[文]网:www.youerw.com。黄中习编著的《中华对联研究与英译初探》则是少数对联英译研究中的佳作。本文中的大量范例就引自该书。然而此书及其它少数相关研究大多将目光放在翻译方法的探索上，研究如何创优补缺，达到最佳翻译效果。本文重点则是从形、音、意三方面，借助对联，一一分析并找出汉语特有的激发美感的因素，以此突出汉语的独特性，艺术性，希望激发更多的人对汉字及其承载的文化好之，习之，乐之。

毕业论文关键词：中华对联;     形式美;     音乐美;     意境美;     不可译性

 Contents

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Background and Aim of the Study1

1.2 Outline of the Paper2

Chapter Two Literature Review 4

2.1 The Status Quo of the Study 4

2.2 Literature Review of duilian Translation Study 4

Chapter Three Brief Comparison between Chinese and English 7

3.1 Ideograph and Phonography  7

3.2 Semantic Pattern and Morphological Pattern8

Chapter four Chinese Couplet and Its Beauty11

4.1 Lost Beauty of Form 11

4.2 Lost Beauty of Sound 15

4.3 Lost Beauty of Sense 19

4.4Chinese Couplet with Ingenious Quality22

Chapter Five Conclusion26

Reference 27

The Untranslatability of Chinese Couplet into English in Terms of Aesthetics

Chapter One Introduction

1.1Background and Aim of the Study   

 Chinese civilization, with its long development history, has fruited grandeur achievements, particularly in literature and arts. If we compare the poetry and proses to vast sea, Chinese couplet would be the folds and folds of spindrift. In ancient times, especially during Ming and Qing dynasty, duilian was used widely in teaching kids learning the language. On many occasions, people with power and fame or working by farming, fishing, hunting, etc. all took it as a sign of good knowledge to be able to make up a couplet with superior quality. However, in modern times, against the backdrop of globalization and the rocketing lift of living pace, our mother tongue has got an attention far less than it deserves that many high graders can’t even really appreciate a poem. It was reported that a group of college students from Hong Kong paid a visit to a prestigious inland university, during which time, Hong Kong students suggested to compete for fun through composing Chinese couplet. Under this proposition, those inland students were all lost in puzzle and embarrassment (李征，2003).  从美学角度看汉英对联的不可译性:http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_43634.html