A Conceptual Integration Study On Meaning Negotiation In The Interpreting Process

This dissertationreports onaconceptual integrationstudyofmeaningnegotiationanditsoperationmechanisminthecognitiveprocessofinterpreting.Inthis study,theinterpretingprocess,a backstagecognitionis narrowed downtotheinterpreter's mental working in consecutive conference interpreting (hereafter calledinterpreting).Meaningnegotiation,also namedas asynergyoperationof conceptualization,is perceived as a special mechanism of meaning construction in interpreting, representedby a series of conceptual integrations with complex inputs. It attempts to reveal thatthrough the coordination of meaning negotiation mechanism, the linguistic andcommunicative information the interpreter captures dynamically and the pre-existingknowledge in her memory will be constantly integrated online, which keeps inspiring theinterpreter'mindinsightfullyandcontinuouslytowork.Up to now, researches into the interpreting process (as in the field of informationprocessing, cranial nerves, cognitive psychology, etc.) mostly center on a repeateddemonstration of serial interpreting procedures, which leave the world of a systematicsearch within the conceptualization and the conceptual interface between linguisticprocessing, memory analysis and intention realization unsatisfactorily explored andchartered. Therefore, the cognitive nature of the interpreting process remains complicatedandconfusing.Againstthebackdropofself-organizingmechanisminsystemsthinkingandthrough theoretical and empirical demonstrations, this research aims to construct acognitive model of meaning negotiation by probing into the hard-to-be-perceivedconceptual operation mechanism in the interpreting process in light of ConceptualIntegration Theory proposed by Fauconnier & Turner (Fauconnier 1997;Fauconnier&Turner 1996,2002) and in combination with the basic principles of languagecommunicationincognitivelinguistics,psycholinguisticsandcognitivescience.The present study is hypothesized as follows. Cognitive operation of interpreting istestified by systematic conceptualization representing the complexity of cognition andexperience. The cognitive process of interpreting is more of an open dynamic non-linearmeaning construction involved with both linguistic and extra-linguistic informationrepresented in a three-stage-integration model manipulated by the corresponding meaningnegotiation mechanism in a series of conceptual integrations rather than a simply linearinput-output procedure. With mental space as its basic unit of cognitive operation, theinterpreting process involves the conceptual integration taking place across effector space, perception space, relevance space, contextualization space, understanding space,memorization space and receptor space. During processing, the cognitive inputs, includingsuch dimensions in language, communication and prior knowledge, participate inintegration and result ina series of conceptual salience in the blended space, with meaningnegotiation mechanism working acrossverious mental spaces. Meaning negotiationmechanism is reflected in the conceptualization of prior-knowledge salience betweeneffector space and receptor space, constant interactions between cognitive subjects and soon. All of these interrelated operations interplay with each other and work with thecross-space meaning negotiation, and new structures of conceptualization becomeemergent in different stages of conceptual integration of interpreting. As a result,perlocutionary correspondence is eventually achieved as a result of the co-operative workof conceptualizations in such procedures as understanding, memorizing and reconstructionintheinterpretingprocess.The study is aimed to reveal the relationship between whole and part, categories andhierarchies in a system of concept by proposing the basic theoretical principles on whichmeaning negotiation mechanism keeps running, and to build an explanative and feasiblecognitive processing model of meaning negotiation featured with conceptual integration.The research, with a multi-aspect, qualitative approach adopted from Setton (1999), hastriedtocombinebottom-uptheoreticalinvestigationwithtop-downempiricalanalysis.Thetheoretical investigation, developed on the basis of recent developments in modernlinguistics, psycholinguistics, linguistic philosophy, cognitive science and systems science,has attemptedtoanalyze thedatacollectedinlive conferenceconsecutiveinterpretationbyusing an introspective method, and to build a conceptual integration model of meaningnegotiation. To further illustrate the validity of the study, empirical analysis, guided by amixture of quantitative data with qualitative analysis, and experimentation with survey, isintended to scientifically quantify relevant variables involved in language and mentaloperation, as well as to analyze the functions, relationship and variance of each variable indifferent stage of conceptual integration. In order to ensure the internal validity of thevariables, such means as variable assignment and sample categorization are employdduring data analysis. These above efforts hopefully will lead to a better and more accurateevaluationofconceptualizationcompetenceoperatedbymeaningnegotiation.The major findings are stated in the following four aspects. Firstly, the backstagecognition of interpreting, including both cognitive process and cognitive production,involves the operation of meaning negotiation mechanism with conceptual integrations taking place in the interpreter's mental world, including paralleled conceptualizations,rather than simple mappings between source language and target language. During theprocess of interpreting, the core of decoding and encoding of language structures consistsin the on-line communication and cooperation of conceptual models with differentcognitive models and features, and maximized effect of blendingachieved byparticipatingelements from different mental spaces. Secondly, interpreting competence in cognitivesense is heavily relied on the interpreter's conceptualized framing ability, generallyreflected by a systematic meaning negotiation operation among subsystems. In this sense,such so-called interpreting competence is not a static notion, but cognitive processing inwhich paralleled conceptualizations are involved and various subsystems are interrelatedand interactivated. Thirdly, meaning negotiation mechanism not only dominates variousconceptualizations in the interpreting process, but also provides a cognitive measurementclassifying those conceptualizations which take place in the mental operation system ofinterpreting. Conceptual integration in the cognitive process of interpreting incorporatesmany ever-changing and intricate subsystems, each of which is made conceptually salientbecause of the conceptualization of the previous subsystems. This conceptualized salientstructure, in the same way, lays a foundation for the next-stage conceptualization ofblending. Last but not least, meaning negotiation mechanism in the interpreting processdisplays two major types of cognitive tendencyin conceptual integration, namely, simplexintegrationandcomplexintegration.This research, an endeavor made to systematically depict the conceptualization ofmental operation in the interpreting process, is devoted to a theoretical innovation. Theproposal of Prior-knowledge Salience Hypothesis is grounded on the dynamic knowledgestructure in interpreting. It is hypothesized that the prior knowledge can be found in everyphase of the conceptual integration of interpreting, influencing the conceptualization ofmeaning negotiation. The conceptualization of the prior knowledge, which has been takenfor granted but not clarified in the interpretation-research circle, is, again, elaborated.Besides, the interrelationship between presence and absence is, for the first time,expounded in Dual-Context Interconnection Hypothesis, and it is also revealed that thecontext in interpreting is essentially conceptual, constructed in accordance with theconceptual integration of interpreting, both of which provide a new perspective in contextstudy. In addition, the notion of subjectivity is reexamined in PerlocutionaryCorrespondence Hypothesis. Communication between different subjects motivatesinteraction between spaces. The cognitive operation of verbal acts in interpretation is explained by conceptual integration from mental spaces. What's more, the employment ofvariable assignment and categorization in data processing greatly increases the validity ofthe empirical research by standardizing those unstable variables associated with cognition.Through a comprehensive study, some of the key issues concerning cognitive process ofinterpretingand still remaining in debate, are discussed and unfolded, which is hoped tolenditselftothefutureresearchintosuchmechanismsasattention,memory,andthelikeintheinterpretingprocess.