An Embodied-Cognitive Research On Gestalt Image Actualization In Translation Of Classical Chinese Poetry

The translation process of a literary text involves not only the translator’s linguistic cognition,but also his or her aesthetic experience.As a mediating schema to communicate between the source text and the target text,gestalt image possesses gestalt qualities such as “wholeness” and “closure”,and is a kind of mental completion.Therefore,the process study of gestalt image actualization is of great significance in exploring the embodied-cognitive activities of translators in literary translation.This paper draws on theories and knowledge of Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology,and adopts a qualitative research method to examine in detail the embodied-cognitive processes of translators in gestalt image actualization of ancient poems.Taking the translation in Pound’s Cathay as an example,this study attempts to reveal the embodied-cognitive mechanism behind Pound’s translation.The research has the following findings:(1)Based on the core principle of ECL,“reality-cognition-language”,the embodied-cognitive process model of image-G actualization in the translation of classical Chinese poetry can be described as “embodied experience of image-G→construal of image-G in source text→construction of image-G in target text”.The translator acquires corresponding experiential and conceptual structures through the interaction with the textual reality and the objective world,and follows the Gestalt law based on generally grasping the two cultural mental schemata of the source language and the target language.And then the translator combines such construal dimensions as scope and perspective to make a further understanding of the image-G contained in the original text.In the end,the linguistic representation of image-G is carried out from the lexical,syntactic,and discourse levels,and the goal of gestalt image actualization is finally achieved.(2)This paper finds that most of his translated poems can well convey the image-G of the original poems.However,due to specific internal and external limitations,some of the translated poems suffer from omissions,misinterpretations and failure to accurately convey the image-G of the original poems.(3)The translated poems in Pound’s Cathay display a definite trend in three aspects,that is,image juxtaposition,free rhythm,and annotation absence,which are inextricably connected with both his unique embodied experience and cognitive pattern as a poet and translator.Taking Pound’s English translation practice in Cathay as an example,this paper conducts an embodied-cognitive investigation of image-G actualization in the translation of classical Chinese poetry,revealing the embodied-cognitive process of the translator in image-G actualization,opening up new perspectives for embodiedcognitive translation studies,and providing theoretical references for translation practice.