A Cognitive Study On The Specificity In Hawkes' Translation Of Hong Lou Meng

The publication of David Hawkes' English translation of Hong Lou Meng is a great drive to translations of Chinese classical novels, and opens a new perspective to the concerned studies. The present dissertation exhibits the feature of specificity in Hawkes' translation by comparing and analyzing the two English versions of the first 80 chapters of Hong Lou Meng by Hawkes and Yang Xianyi, and it attempts to make a study on the cognitive mechanism of Hawkes, that is, to seek the reasons for the translator to have such a specificity,and thus to answer the question of "why there is such a translation".The introduction briefly sums up the features of the Chinese original Hong Lou Meng and suggests the striking feature of specificity by in Hawkes' translation, and we also lays out our aim of the present study. Chapter Two overviews the relevant researches other scholars did and points out the problem to be solved. We trace back the studies from the cultural, linguistic and aesthetical points of view, and put forward the idea of further research on the cognitive mechanism of the translator. The third chapter is about the theoretical frame and research method of this dissertation. After briefing the relevant translation theories, it focuses on the cognitive linguistic theory, and explains that bodily experienced cognition is the philosophical basis of cognitive linguistics, and the experience of the human body, society and culture is the source of human cognition, which abides by objective rules and goes with certain models. In such models the construal shows a kind of subjectivity as a general procedure of cognition, including some basic cognitive abilities, while Idealized Cognitive Model (ICM) involves four principles, that is, Propositional Structure, Image-Schematic Structure, Metaphoric Mapping and Metonymic Mapping. Chapter Four analyses Hawkes' specific and detailed compensations on Chinese cultural content, such as in idioms and allusions, poems and dramas, traditional Chinese medicine, and rituals and customs, which helps the target readers to form their proper ICM. Chapter five deals with specific and detailed translations of the composition of text, such as in formats, expressions and descriptions, in order to hightlight the effect and clarify meanings and logic, which is also to bring proper ICM to the readers. Chapter Six explores, from the five aspects of cognitive abilities, background, selection, perspective, specificity and salience, Hawkes' cognitive mechanism in his specificity, which is indeed a universal law in human cognition. Chapter Seven further demonstrates that the study from the cognitive linguistic point of view can explain the necessity and rationality of specificity translation, and it can illustrate the cognitive mechanisms of the translator and his great subjectivity in translating.Thus we see clearly that Hawkes' subjectivity in his specificity translation lies just in his faithful expereince of the original and his good grasp of the target reader's cognitive conditions, and especially in his best construal of the reader's proper ICM. And by analyzing somewhat rich data, we are pleased to find that cognitive linguistics and its major concepts can render reasonable interpretation of particular translator's inner cognitive activity in his specific translating.In short, cognitive linguistics can reveal the necessity of particular translator's specific translation, and demonstrate cogently how he can introduce the original culture faithfully and effectively in his own particular way. Such a discussion is sure to be valuable for translation study and practice.