Cognition And Translation

The aim of the thesis is to explore the process of translating in the light of the science of cognition, especially cognitive linguistics.The thesis falls into seven parts.The first part argues that, instead of directing much attention to the outcome of translating, focus should be dropped on the process of translating for the reason that no exact equivalence to the source text can be achieved in the translated text. It also says that cognitive linguistics is right the window through which the process of translating can be seen.The second part first studies different views on what is cognition, and then goes on to talk about cognitive linguistics, its characteristics and its theoretical foundation: experientialism. It also says that translation is cognition in nature in that it deeply concerns the translator's perception, understanding and thinking. The cognitive approach to translation is to explore the influence of the psychological state of the translator activated by the source text on his translation.In the process of translating, certain parts of the translator's experiences will be activated by the source text and then they will influence his psychological state. Therefore in the third part, concept, the conceptualized experiences, and its formation and organizaton are discussed.Concepts are stored in the heads of everybody, but it requires some intelligence to be a translator. Then the fourth part rests on what the translator's intelligence is composed of: knowledge and skills of thetranslator.The translator, as a communicator, is affected by the cognitive psychology activated by the source text. In the fifth part, the thesis points out that the cognitive psychology of the translator is acturally inference. That is, the process of understanding the source text is in fact a process in which the translator makes inference. And by making inference, the translator grasps the meaning of the source text.The sixth part argues that, when translation is studied as a process, the approach of cognitive linguistics is very common. On this basis, how to translate meanings from a language to another language is studied in this chapter. It is pointed out that what is widely made use of in studying the process of translation is the knowledge of schema, which is discussed in this part in much detail.Metaphor is viewed as a very important part of cognitive science. Therefore, while talking about the relation between cognition and translation, metaphor can never be dodged away. In the seventh part, metaphor is discussed in much detail, including its relation with translation. It also touches upon how to translate the metaphorical speeches from one language to another one.