Study On Translator's Translation Process

'Translation' itself is an ambiguous term containing at the same time the meaning of translation product and translation process. Focusing on the study of translation principles, criteria, and methods subjectively, traditional translation study is mainly product-oriented and has hindered the further development of translation theory. With the development of the neighboring sciences, it goes without doubt that a complete and comprehensive translation study should embrace the study of product and process at the same time. However, translation study has been long product-centered, with rare attention paid to the process. At present, a process-oriented approach towards translation studies from the perspective of psycho-cognition is urgently needed to probe into the translation process.This thesis presented here is a piece of interdisciplinary research which has made some attempts to demonstrate: (1) Why the shift of focus on product-oriented translation study is urgently moved to the process-oriented study and how far the process-oriented translation study has gone far and (2) Does there exist a translating model? if it does, then how can researchers employ this mental model to explain the real-world phenomenon (translating process)? (3) How a psycho-cognitive approach (think-aloud protocol) can be employed to probe into the comprehending phase of translating process. Based on human information-processing theory, it attempts to probe into the mental mechanism of a translator when translating with the aim to contribute to a better understanding of the cognitive process implied in translating. A model of translating process based on theory of human information-processing, will be constructed to establish an explicit account of how the information-processing faculties of the translator's mind enable him/her to comprehend the source language text. Finally, building on the variation of TAP, 1 carry out a case study aiming to provide an objective description of translators' mental state through the contrastive analysis of the research reports.This thesis consists of four parts, excluding Conclusion.IVAs an introduction, Chapter One begins with the background of the study-product-oriented study and process-oriented study. Traditional translation studies only focus on the product-oriented approach but pay rare attention to process-oriented study. Such tendency is urgently needed to change seeing that it is in translation process the source language text is translated into the target language. Building on the background of the study, I put forward the objective of this thesis-contributing to get a better understanding of mental mechanism in translating process.Chapter Two as a literature review, is a brief historical retrospect of models of translating process, in which models of Nida, Kade, Stein, Diller & Kornelius, and Roger T. Bell will be introduced and then commented. Excluding Roger T. Bell, the other four scholars only investigated translation process from approaches of linguistics, communication theory, text theory and meaning theory respectively, but paying rare attention on the translating performance and saying superficially little about the mental state of translator. As for Bell's model, combining the theory of systemic linguistics, psychology, cognitive science and artificial intelligence together, has actually not completely broken away from systemic linguistic.Aiming at solving the problems existing in the models of the second part, Chapter Three presents a new approach to the study of translator's translation process, i.e. a psycho-cognitive approach, which, based on human information-processing theory, investigates the mental mechanism of the translator when translating. Meanwhile, a mental translating model has been constructed to establish comprehensive notions and to find out ways and means for the description and explanation of translating process. My model is different from Bell's in the following aspects: Firstly, the original meaning of basic concepts borrowed from cognitive science and psy...