On Dichotomies Of Translation Strategies:A Cognitive Perspective

Literal translation and free translation have always been a controversial topic in the translation studies, in China and abroad. For centuries, translators have never stopped their working for giving descriptive or prescriptive delineation of various facets of translation strategies so as to offer guidelines for translation practice. Modern linguists, pragmatists and cognitive linguists in particular, probe into this old issue by proposing different linguistic approaches, with which the translation strategies have been expounded. However, few has given satisfactory account or got wide recognition from the cognitive perspective up to now.Our key theoretical goal is to inquire into the inner mechanisms of different translation strategies. A qualitative and introspective method adopted in our study is based on a considerable amount of data selected from English—Chinese or Chinese—English translation coursebooks as well as proverb dictionaries. Then, we bring out a new division of translation strategies, that is, denotation inheritance-based translation and connotation inheritance-based translation. Guided by the principles of cognitive linguistics, the present study emerges from Xu Shenghuan's Theory of the Inheritance of Denotation and Connotation, which, as a dynamic and open system, mainly consists of two organic parts, namely, Type Hierarchy Structure and Inheritance of Denotation and Connotation, with this being responsible for the account of the inner mechanisms of translation strategies.On the ground of a large variety of definitions of translation from various aspects, translation is considered to be a type of substitution. The substitution of the source language item A with the target language B can be abstracted as one formula—A is B. The substitution or switchover of words/expressions on language level is backed up by the mental interaction of concepts/categories represented by concerned language forms. According to Xu's Inheritance of Denotation and Connotation, knowledge in mental models is organized in type hierarchy structure, in which events and entities are presumed to take a particular place of their own and all supercategories and their subcategories are in an inheritance relation in terms of connotation or denotation. That's why the two concerned concepts/categories can be conceived to be identical temporarily in cognition so that the substitution on language level turns out to be possible. By the direct application of the inheritance relation in denotation inheritance-based translation, the substitution of the source language with the target language is realized in the form of denotation inheritance. As for the connotation inheritance-based translation, a new type hierarchy structure needs to be established with the two concerned concepts as the subcategories and one of their similar connotations as the supercategory. This being the case, the two concerned concepts are classified into the identical supercategory and inherit the connotations from it. In a word, although the two kinds of translation strategies differ in the inheriting processes, they both come down to the temporary identity of the two concerned concepts, which makes translation done.The thesis is incorporated into six chapters:Chapter One is an introduction. In this chapter, we mainly introduce the topic of this thesis, raise the key research questions and set the guideline of this research, and then illustrate the methodology, data collection and the organization of this paper.Chapter Two reviews related studies on translation strategies both at home and abroad. On carefully examining the previous studies, we state the necessity for the present study in the summary of this chapter.Chapter Three shows the theoretical framework of our study in this paper. Based on Xu Shenghuan's Theory of Type Hierarchy Structure and the Inheritance of Denotation and Connotation, we attempt to form the theoretical foundation for our analysis in this paper. Chapter Four revisits the definitions of translation and classifications of translation strategies given by previous scholars and then offers our view on the definition of translation and raises a new classification of translation strategies. Under close observation, the translation is considered as a type of substitution, which can be taken as the breakthrough to dig out the inner mechanisms of different translation strategies.Chapter Five aims to uncover the underlying cognitive mechanisms of different translation strategies on the ground of the Inheritance of Denotation and Connotation. It concludes that literal translation and foreignizing translation are attributed to be denotation inheritance-based translation while free translation and domesticating translation belong to connotation inheritance-based translation. Case studies are also embraced in this chapter.Chapter Six, the concluding remarks, presents a summary of this study together with the major findings, limitations and implications for further studies.