A Cognitive Study Of Category Shifts In Translation

In the second half of the 20^thcentury,researchers have already begun to study translation from perspective of Cognitive Linguistics,but it was not until the early 21^stcentury when R.M.Martín proposed the term“cognitive translatology”that the two disciplines were formally integrated so as to shape a new paradigm of translation studies.Cognitive translatology as a new paradigm of translation studies combines theoretical principles and research methods of cognitive science and cognitive linguistics with translation studies,having a promising potential to shed light on the theoretical development and application of translation studies.Category and categorization are pivotal components of the theoretical enterprise of cognitive linguistics.Applying categorization theory to translation studies can effectively avoid the defects of the dichotomies in classical translation theories at home and abroad,which may contribute to translation studies by re-examining the category attributes of translation.In line with the commitments above,many translation researchers have made abounding explorations in the mode,process and strategy of translation category shifts,and have already achieved fruitful research results,but there are still some limitations:(1)Although previous studies have pointed out that translation is a category shifts activity,the process and mode of category shifts in translation still need to be further explored.(2)Previous efforts have mainly focused on the description of translation phenomena but underestimated its explanatory studies,therefore,these studies haven't explained clearly why categories can be shifted in translation.In other words,the cognitive mechanism of translation category shifts is still of fuzziness.Considering the above limitations,this study on the one hand aims to construct a category shifts model of translation and reveal the category shifts process by exploring the category shifts in translation based on the theory of category and categorization of cognitive linguistics;on the other hand,explores the fundamental question why category shifts between source language categories and target language categories are possible by analyzing some E-C and C-E translation examples and so as to probe its cognitive mechanisms which may contribute to improving the cognitive translatology and further deepen the applied research of cognitive linguistics.Specifically,this study focuses on the following issues:(1)What is the nature and attribute of translation from the perspective of cognitive categories?(2)What is the model of translation category shifts?(3)Why category shifts between source language categories and target language categories can be achieved and what are the cognitive bases and mechanisms?The main research findings are as follows:Firstly,translation in essence is a cognitive activity on the basis of category shifts,that is,translation is a dynamic shift process from source language categories to target language categories.Translation has the attribute of prototype category,which is the principle of many characteristics and topics of translation.Specifically,there are three main category relationships between source language categories and target language categories:category equivalence,category misplacement,and category vacancy.These three category relationships are closely related to the cultural dependence of translation categories.The formation of different types of cultural-loaded words is connected with different physical experiences which may affect the formation of different cultural models and cognitive patterns.This will inevitably have effects on languages,generating differences in the representations between different languages and forming many cultural-loaded words with different degrees of dependence on cultural and social contexts,thus leading to the existence of these three category relationships.Secondly,the shift model from source language categories to target language categories is mainly composed of linguistic category shifts and non-linguistic category shifts.In translation practice,source language categories and target language categories have undergone a series of cognitive processing,such as category substitution,category integration,re-categorization,and cross-categorization.These processes are based on prototypical category theory and idealized cognitive models(ICM).In addition,the realization of information equivalence between the source language and target language requires not only linguistic category shifts(vocabulary,syntax,semantics,pragmatics,style,etc.),but also non-linguistic category shifts(society,culture,etc.).Thirdly,translation is a metaphorical and metonymic category shifts activity.Its metaphoricity is reflected in the fact that translation essentially has the metaphorical characteristics as translators need to use the similarity between categories to interpret the source language categories by using the target language categories during the translation process.Unlike metaphor,metonymy is a mapping performed in the same cognitive model,and its essence is to replace one category with another category.Translators need to understand and deconstruct the source language category first,and then looks for the corresponding category in the target language for construction and expression.This process reflects the metonymic operation of“one category substitutes another category”.Fourthly,the category shifts in translation are restricted by embodied cognition and iconicity which also serve as its mechanisms.In translation practice,translators need to analyze source language categories and target language categories.During the analyzing process,they are required not only to consider the language structure,but also the conceptual structure or empirical structure so as to achieve the conceptual structure equivalence of the source language and target language.Besides,translators also need to have an iconicity consciousness,in order that ther can dig out the language iconicity hidden behind the text as much as possible so as to achieve the ideal shift effect of“expressing spirit by form”or“resemblance both in form and spirit”.Cognitive translatology is a new paradigm of translation studies.Guided by this paradigm,this study constructs the model of translation category shifts,explores its process and reveals its cognitive mechanisms on the basis of the category and categorization theory of cognitive linguistics.In short,the model of translation category shifts constructed in this study serves as an effective supplement to previous studies on translation process.In addition,a cognitive study of category shifts in translation,as an essential part of the theoretical enterprise of cognitive translatology,has a promising potential in improving and developing the theory of cognitive translatology.