| The stream-of-consciousness (SOC) novel plays an important role in the historyof literature with its innovative experiment of fictional form and content. VirginiaWoolf is a representative figure. Her writing purpose is to genuinely present theflowing consciousness and innermost feelings of the characters. She uses innovativewriting techniques to achieve such a goal, of which the most important feature shouldbe the application of deviated or foregrounding language.Foregrounding language in literary works is by no means arbitrary; instead, it isrecurrent and meaningful. SOC novels are no exceptions in this regard. Actually,foregrounding features are even more obvious in this literary genre. This paper takesup Mrs. Dalloway for research and approaches three cognitive categories offoregrounded linguistic patterns: free indirect discourse at the narrative level,fragmentary sentences at the syntactic level and metaphorical expressions at therhetorical level.These patterns may contribute to the representation of the authorial-narrator orthe characters’ cognitive state. By introducing a cognitive perspective, this paper aimsto carry out detailed discussions on translation of the foregrounding features in Mrs.Dalloway. The specific research will be conducted through two procedures: First, todiscuss the issues of translatability, equivalence, translation standards, and strategiesof foregrounding language translation; Second, to compare the two translated versionswith a lot of supporting examples from the Chinese versions.The two translations for analysis are Sun Liang&Su Mei’s version firstpublished in1988and Gu Qinan’s version in1997. In order to realize optimaltranslation equivalence, the translator is responsible for preserving foregroundinglanguage as much as possible to represent the cognitive state of the characters. Todiscuss foregrounding translation of SOC novels from a cognitive view is a relativelynew endeavor and is expected to provide a new insight into SOC novel translation. |
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