Conceptual Integration Theory And The Translation Process Of Imageable Idioms

As an important part of language, idioms reflect culture and are also restrained by culture, so idiom translation is not a simple linguistic question. The researchers in the field of translation have paid attention to idiom translation for the complexity and importance of idioms. However, most of the studies have been done only from the linguistic angle, either listing out the prescriptive translations or enumerating several translating methods(such as literal method, free translation, literal translation with annotation etc.). Thus the cognitive translation process (the"backstage"operation in the translator's mind) has not been touched. The reason may be that this cognitive activity is too fast and transitory for the translator to perceive, which is also the difficulty that we feel in this study. The purpose of this thesis is to create a new model of the cognitive translation process of imageable idioms with the help of Conceptual Integration Theory and Functional Equivalence Theory. Compared with the previous translation models, this model is idiom-specific and lays emphasis on the role of the translator. As a result, this model provides a much more practical guideline for translators in that it probes into the"black box"of the translator. To make this study more scientific and reasonable, we have to reduce the scope of research into the imageable idioms which refer to the idioms that can trigger images in the readers'mind.Conceptual Integration Theory is the main theory adopted in this thesis. It provides a tool for this study. The author classifies the translation process of imageable idioms into three sub-processes: the comprehension process, the reproduction process and the verification process, all of which can resort to Conceptual Integration Theory for explanation. Thanks to the conceptual integration networks, the abstract process of the cognitive translation process can be clearly illustrated.Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory is the subsidiary theory used in this thesis, reflecting upon which the author believes that the translator keeps such a criterion in his/her mind during the translation process, that is s/he tries his best to make sure the translation could trigger the same reader response in the receptor's mind , especially in the reproduction process and the verification process. For this purpose, the translator shuttles between the source language domain and the target language domain. In the comprehension process, the translator pretends to be a local reader in the source language and decodes the original idiom. In the reproduction process, the translator is a creator whose mission is to transform the original idiom into the target language without any distortion. To ensure the correctness of the translation, a verification process is indispensable. In this process, the translator acts as a target receptor and decodes the translation in the target language, then s/he compares this information with what s/he gets from the comprehension process and estimate whether the translation is a correct one.The combination of Conceptual Integration Theory and translation studies has provided a brand-new perspective for the study of the imageable idioms'translation process. The author hopes that the attempt made in this thesis may to some extent be helpful in this study and also interdisciplinary studies.