An Interpretation Of The Definition Of Translation From The Perspective Of Prototype Theory

The thesis attempts to study the definition of translation in a broad sense from the perspective of Prototype Theory,with the intention of launching a more systematic study of the translation definition and contributing to the relevant field of explorations.As is commonly held among the academia,though the definition of a subject is of significance to its further development,the opinions remain divergent in the matter of defining translation.Previous studies of translation definitions fall into two main categories based on the researching views,a disciplinary one and an integrated one.Nevertheless,a vast majority of them are far from flawless.Some adopt a view too broad to deal with the nature of translation,some confine the subject to its linguistic aspect,and some are so closely associated with a certain discipline that the access to comprehension is hard to achieve.Most importantly,without a specific theoretical angle as the analytic foundation,most of them somewhat lack systematicness and persuasiveness in drawing conclusions.Prototype Theory is a categorical theory widely discussed in cognitive linguistics,whose main principles include the non-binary attributes of members,the graded membership,Family Resemblance as well as a fuzzy boundary.With the prototype as its center and Family Resemblance as its constructing principle,a prototypical category is relatively stable to survive the change of times and adequately flexible to assimilate all the new members.According to Prototype Theory and the basic universal requirements for definition,an appropriate description of translation ought to be inclusive,restrictive,typical and applicable.Against this yardstick,analyses of four representative definitions,given by Roman Jakobson,Itmar Even-Zohar,Gideon Toury and Qian Zhongshu,have been made in terms of their merits and demerits.Though Yang Bingjun and Long Minghui have respectively defined translation according to Prototype Theory,the definitions require rethinking.On the basis of all the previous studies,the thesis ventures to redefine translation as an activity by which the target example is found according to the source material.It is believed that the definition is sufficient in fulfilling the four principles for definition.The feasibility of the new definition is further examined through comparisons of three translations of The Great Gatsby.The examination proves the practical significance of defining translation according to Prototype Theory,for in so doing different translated texts of the same original text are considered equally legitimate members of the same category of the translated text,thus they will all be judged more impartially and assessed more comprehensively as regards their contributions to the development of translation practice.