A Cognitive Research Of The Chinese And English Sentence Patterns In Translation

Varied translation difficulties arise due to the diversity in translation purposes, texts and receptors, etc., which are addressed with many distinct translation theories or principles falling within translation studies. Catford's A Linguistic Theory of Translation triggers the linguistic turn of translation studies, followed by a variety of approaches to translation, such as equivalence-oriented approaches, pragmatics approaches, corpus approaches, and particularly cognitive/psycholinguistic approaches. (Li 2005:29~83) The cognitive approach to translation focuses on the mental process which relies on sophisticated information processing skills. (Baker 2004:185~186) However, the cognitive approach mainly deals with mental activities of an individual, partially concealing the cultural aspects of translation. Therefore, this thesis approaches translation from a culture-specific cognitive perspective, which in part originates from Newmark's notion of cognitive translation. Newmark's cognitive translation is"a pre-translation procedure which may be performed on the source language text to convert it into the source or target language."(Newmark 2001:40)Sentence translating is the research subject in the thesis. The unit of translation can be word, morpheme, phrase or even clause. (Baker 2004:286) However, sentence serves as a manageable unit in translation practice in that it is a smallest linguistic unit realizing propositions. In addition, the ambiguities in categorization of the Chinese sentences result in translation difficulties frequently encountered in translation practice, making the sentence translating of much research value.This thesis is intended to undertake a cognitive research of the Chinese and English sentence patterns in translation. To this end, the contrastive analysis is taken as the research methodology. Equivalence problems in translation result from structural divergencies on syntactic, semantic, and stylistic levels; therefore, the contrastive analysis is of growing importance for the science of translation. (Wilss 2001:178) Currently, the contrastive analysis is dedicated to an interpretation of the linguistic dissimilarities from the perspective of cognitive patterns. (Xu 2002:20) Furthermore, the contrastive methodology is an indispensable device in translation studies because it can provide interrelations, differences, and relatively objective criteria. (Liu 2005:xi) On the one hand, an in-depth contrastive analysis of the Chinese and English sentence patterns can lead to a discovery of their similarities and dissimilarities; on the other hand, rational inferences or conclusions might result from prudent contrastive analyses.This thesis is intended to undertake a cognitive research of the Chinese and English sentence patterns, and is divided into six chapters.Chapter One serves as the introduction of the thesis, which pinpoints the reasons for undertaking the research, the methodology employed, and the aims to be attained in the research.Chapter Two presents a literature review. A historical review of the research on the Chinese sentence patterns is first of all undertaken in which differing categorizations of the sentences are evaluated and commented and the ambiguities in the categorization of the Chinese sentences are pinpointed, demonstrating the research value of the Chinese sentence patterns in translation studies. A corresponding review is undertaken of the English sentence patterns, presenting the English sentence patterns commonly accepted by differing linguistic schools. Secondly, a review is undertaken with reference to cognitive translation both in China and in the West. Historical origins and evolutions of cognitive translation in China are uncovered, and differing translation theories in the West are addressed, underlying the historical and theoretical basis of cognitive translation to be postulated in this thesis.Chapter Three presents contrastive interpretations of the cognitive patterns in China and in the West, and of the differing linguistic features of Chinese and English. With cognitive science as the theoretical foundation, the relation is pinpointed between cognition and culture, revealing the culture-specific feature of cognitive patterns. Hence, the cognitive pattern is conceptualized as the worldview commonly accepted by a cultural community, which is generalized from the mental organization in each individual's mind of how the world works. Secondly, differing features of cognitive patterns in China and in the West are pinpointed and depicted by virtue of three dichotomies, i.e., visualized vs. abstract, integral vs. analytic, and subjective vs. objective. In addition, differing linguistic features in Chinese and English are respectively revealed with an employment of three dichotomies, i.e., paratactic vs. hypotactic, personal vs. impersonal, and dynamic vs. static. This elucidation of differing cognitive patterns and linguistic features underlies the contrastive interpretation of the Chinese and English sentence patterns, and the postulation of cognitive translation, pinpointing that a"whole-before-part"relation is demonstrated in the cognitive patterns of the Chinese culture while a"part-before-whole"relation is manifested in the cognitive patterns of the Western cultures.Chapter Four delivers contrastive analyses of the Chinese and English sentence patterns, employing a cognitive perspective. The categorization of the Chinese sentences remains a mystery to researchers. Based on the features of Chinese, Shen Xiaolong postulates that three major categories exist in Chinese sentences, i.e.,"topic-comment sentences","performance sentences"and"relative sentences", which triggers much controversy. An employment of Tai's cognition-based principles in analyzing Shen's three categories of the Chinese sentences effectively validates Shen's categorization of the Chinese sentences, exhibiting the temporal-logical sequence inherent in Chinese sentences. And syntactical features of English sentences are intensively studied, revealing the commonly accepted English sentence patterns.Chapter Five postulates the notion of cognitive translation and interprets the cognitive processes in which each of the Chinese sentence patterns is transferred into English. The cognitive translation in this thesis is hypothesized with a modification of Newmark's cognitive translation, within which culture-specific cognitive patterns are of significance. With analysis-characterizing cognitive translation, five translation procedures are proposed with reference to sentence translating. And a detailed interpretation is undertaken of the transfer of each of the three Chinese sentence patterns into English.Chapter Six presents a summary of the thesis. Different cognitive patterns exist in China and in the West, and distinct linguistic features prevail in Chinese and in English. The Chinese sentences are categorized into"topic-comment sentences","performance sentences"and"relative sentences", which are cognitively in accordance with the temporal-logical sequence. On the contrary, the English sentence patterns are grammatically-oriented. Hence, cognitive translation is postulated and interpreted as an effective device in translating sentence patterns.One major contribution of the research lies in the employment of Tai's cognition-based principles in validating Shen's categorization of the Chinese sentence patterns, thus eliminating the ambiguities in the categorization of the Chinese sentences and exposing the specific characteristics of the Chinese sentences. Another major contribution consists in the postulation of cognitive translation which is oriented to the solution of translation difficulties frequently encountered in translating the Chinese sentences into English. Evidently, these contributions can find their applications in foreign language pedagogy, Chinese studies, and translation studies.