Translation And Conceptual Blending

Conceptual blending theory, a salient theory in western cognitive linguistic field, was brought forward by Fauconnier in the 1990s. This theory has attracted much attention both at home and abroad due to its forceful explanatory power. Scholars have proved its explanatory power from various angles, but few of them apply this to translation studies. Historically, translation has been treated as a metaphor due to our inappropriate perception of"meaning"(something out there, either concrete or abstract), which has nothing to do with human mind. This paper applies conceptual blending theory to translation studies. It holds that meaning is something necessary biology and necessary experience of the translator. Translation, as far as its process is concerned, can be treated as two independent conceptual and linguistic processes of blending in the source and target languages, and as for its result, translation is the integration of two input spaces in a third space with an emergent structure which produces a text of its own. This dissertation maintains that the mental process of translating is dynamic in nature, but most translation researches in China do not uncover the dynamic process of translation.Therefore, this dissertation tries to prove the conceptual blending theory's explanatory power on translation, and at the same time enriches the current translation studies in China from a new angle.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is an introduction, in which, the need for the study and the purposes of the study are stated. Besides, the structure of the thesis is briefly introduced. Chapter two is a comprehensive survey of researches and interpretations on translation. Several issues in translation theory are presented. Chapter three is a detailed description of the conceptual blending theory. The general idea of the blending theory and some of its basic concepts are introduced. Chapter four is the core of this thesis. It first shows language expression is the blend of conceptual structures with grammatical constrains and how they are integrated, and then probes into translation through conceptual integration. It divides translation into five categories to each of which some particular types of conceptual integration networks may be applied. Chapter five is the conclusion part. The restatement of the main idea of this thesis and the future prospect of carrying out translating analysis in the light of this theory comprise of this chapter. Limitation of the thesis is also pointed out to be further studied.