A Cognitive Stylistic Approach To Literary Translation -Analysis With Case Studies

The combination of translation study, especially the literary translation and cognitive stylistics, is the newly-rising approach for translation studies in recent years. Since the 1970s, there have been several linguistic and cultural turns in western translation studies, which pay more attention to the language and context. Cross-discipline and multi-perspective study approach have become a powerful trend since the 1990s. Under such circumstance, cognitive stylistics meets the need of translation development, and opens a new way for the study of translation theory and practice.Cognitive stylistics is a comprehensive approach which combines linguistics, stylistics, cognitive science and psychological mechanism. On one hand, it absorbs the main idea of traditional linguistics and stylistics; and on the other hand, it makes itself distinctive by viewing cognition process as a crucial point. The main idea of it is to read and interpret literary work through readers’cognitive response and process. The aim of cognitive stylistics is to explain how a certain interpretation of literary work is formed, rather than to generate a new interpretation towards it.To apply cognitive stylistics into translation study means focusing on the cognitive process and way of thinking, and explaining the relationship between the original text and the target text, as well as its translator and readers systematically and explicitly. One of the most significant points of this approach is to analyze the construction of meaning in the original text and the reconstruction of meaning in the target text with the notion of cognition. Besides, cognitive stylistics stresses the mind of original writer, reader, translator and even critics. And the elements that help to generate such mind are also emphasized, such as the external environment like society, culture and history, and the internal factors like personal experience and intelligence. The common study strategies of cognitive stylistics like foregrounding, conceptual metaphor and mind style are often applied to translation studies, which is fresh and interesting. Different literary forms have different features in translation. In this thesis, different translation versions of Salinger’s novel, Emerson’s essay and Dickinson’s poem will be compared and analyzed. And it can be found that cognitive stylistic approach is effective in English-to-Chinese translation.Some issues of translation like equivalence and faithfulness have existed for a long time in the history of translation studies and they are controversial. To discuss them with the perspective of cognitive stylistics is of constructive value. What’s more, this thesis also redefines the role and task of translator and stresses the independent value of translated text. In this way, the status of translator and the translated text is supposed to be enhanced. To discuss those questions from the perspective of cognitive stylistics, the academic achievement of translation study will be further enriched.