A Contrastive Study On Two English Versions Of Guo Feng In Shi Jing From The Perspective Of Construal Theory

Shi Jing,as the earliest anthology of poetry in China,has exerted a profound influence on the development of Chinese literature.It is composed of 305 poems from three sections: Feng,Ya,and Song.Feng,also referred to as Guo Feng,is the largest and most essential part of Shi Jing and is regarded as the origin of Chinese realistic poetry.Based on Construal Theory of Cognitive Linguistics,this thesis makes a contrastive analysis of the two versions of Guo Feng in Shi Jing(the versions of Xu Yuanchong and Arthur Waley)from the five dimensions of construal,namely background,scope,perspective,prominence,and specificity,to probe the construal differences between the two versions and their effects on the construal of target readers and discuss the cognitive motivations for these construal differences.From the perspective of cognitive construal,an utterance’s meaning depends not only on the conceptual content it evokes but also on the construal it imposes on that content.In terms of translation,even facing the same content in the source text,different translators always have diverse ways of construal,and then generate different linguistic expressions in target texts.This thesis finds that there are obvious differences in construal between the two English versions of Guo Feng in Shi Jing.The two translators always impose different ways of construal on the target texts,which is embodied in having different cognitive backgrounds,evoking different scopes,choosing different perspectives to describe a scene,making different content more prominent and becoming the focus of attention,and having different levels of specificity.Generally speaking,when the way of construal the translator adopts is consistent with that of the source text,target readers could more easily acquire a similar cognitive experience as readers of the source text and the target text could have better cognitive effects.But when the way of construal the translator adopts diverges from the source text,the target text could not have good cognitive effects for it will be difficult for target readers to construe and even cause their misconception about the topic and content of the source text.From the perspective of cognitive construal,the differences in construal between these two versions mainly originate from the diverse cognitive embodiments between translators.Located in different external environments and with diverse cognition and cognitive capacity,translators would have different subjective embodiments and thus have diverse judgments and results of construal and impose diverse ways of construal on the target text.