Information Integration Of Poetic Metaphor Translation

Poetic metaphor is used to create a literary and artistic effect in literary works. It creates a mood in a perceptible way so as to carry the author’s feelings and emotions. Traditional translation theories have neglected the cognitive nature of metaphor. Based on the theory of conceptual integration and the concept of translation integration, with the poetic metaphor translation in The Story of the Stone as an example, the paper discusses diverse models of information integration in regard with poetic metaphor translation. Specifically, this study focuses on three questions:(1) what cognitive motivations are behind distinct models of poetic metaphor translation?(2) what kind of information integration models are embodied in the translation of poetic metaphor?(3) what conditions are there behind different models of information integration, and how do they work? The main conclusions of the study are as follows:Firstly, translation is a process of information integration in nature, so the translated text is the product of information integration. For the translation of poetic metaphors in The Story of the Stone, different translators take various translation models. Even the models adopted by the same translator in translating different poetic metaphors are also different, and the cognitive motivation behind different models of translation are different models of information integration. Therefore, translation is essentially a process of information integration. This integration process has been fully reflected in the translation of poetic metaphors.Secondly, based on the Conceptual Integration Theory, this paper constructs a theoretical framework for the translation of information integration model. Information integration model contains six important concepts, namely, the source text information space, the translator’s information space, the generic information space, the blended information space, information integration, the target text information. Information integration model of translation follows the six optimization principle of the cognitive processing and the construction of the composite space, which are integration principle, web principle, unpacking principle, topology principle, good reason principle and metonymic projection principle. The information space based on a variety of knowledge construction is a kind of embodied experience in nature. Some information elements in the information space are universal. The poetic metaphor translation mainly involves three kinds of information integration models: the Information Deficiency Integration Model, the Information Inheritance Integration Model and the Information Substitution Integration Model.Thirdly, in combination with the translation of poetic metaphor in The Story of the Stone, this paper discusses the conditions of different models of information integration and explains the operation process of each model in detail. First, the Information Deficiency Integration Model is a kind of cognitive process based on information integration. In this kind of model, not all the source text information can always be completely conveyed and sometimes it will be deficient. In the process of poetic metaphor translation of the Information Deficiency Integration Model, source text information space contains much metaphor image information carrying deep cultural elements of the source language, so the accessibility is relatively low in the translator’s information space, and it needs a supplement of the large amount of background knowledge. Second, the Information Inheritance Integration Model refers to the inheritance of image information and relationship from the source text information space in the process of translation. In this kind of model, the source text information space usually contains a certain universal image existing in both the source language cultural cognitive model and the target language cultural cognitive model. For the readers in both the source and the target language, the metaphor cultural images are all available. But in some cases, the image of the information space of the source text may carry particular metaphorical mapping, which has a deep cognitive cultural imprint. It is unable to inherit fully in translation. In The Story of the Stone, the poetic metaphor translation of the Information Inheritance Integration Model is divided into two parts: complete information inheritance integration model and partial information inheritance integration model. The result of the former is that translation information inherits the metaphorical imagery and the mapping relationship from the source text information space; and the result of the latter is that although the metaphorical imagery can be inherited from the source text information space, some part or all of the mapping relationship between them cannot be inherited. Finally, in the Information Substitution Integration Model, because of the influence of many factors, the same metaphorical imagery or metaphorical relationship in people’s cognitive framework may appear in different interpretations. As the result, during the translation process, it’s impossible for the translator to make a direct inheritance of the imagery and metaphor relationship from the source text like the Information Inheritance Integration Model. In order to achieve the equivalence between the source text and the target text, the translator will make a substitution of information, the result of which is that the information of the target text and the source text are not equal in appearance, but the metaphorical intention and the intrinsic relationship of the two are equal. In this kind of model, the source text information space usually contains has the unique characteristics of metaphorical imagery in culture’s cognition of the source language. Though in the information space there are not such images with exactly the same metaphorical imageries, the mapping relationship can be expressed by other visual images. In The Story of the Stone, there are many poetic metaphor translations in the Information Inheritance Integration Model in Hawkes’ translation, which is also the reason why it is widely believed that Hawkes’ translation is mainly in the model of Domestication Translation.