Translating In A New Perspective Of Context

A series of linguistic schools or disciplines have been examining the context subject since the concept was advanced by Malinowski in the early twentieth century, and they have been mainly exploring the intricate and complicated meaning phenomena in a context perspective, especially the meaning categories beyond traditional semantics. Thus context has been related to meaning ever since its birth. To translate is translating meaning and the essential issue in translating is meaning; the way and extent to transmit meanings accounts for the un-translatability and other problems in translating and the differences the contextual elements in translation context take on also lead to these problems.The effective way to approach translation and analyze the problems in translating has to start with the essential issue—meaning and a review on meaning-determining context or the way the contextual elements interact to produce meaning. As a result, the task of affecting meaning transfer or construction in translating can be accomplished by intervening into the context system while adapting to the ways context defines meaning.The essential nature of meaning is a trinitary cognition relation. The cognitive subject in the cognitive relation system—human—occupies a core position, whose cognitive mental activity dominates the relation features; the two particular objects are what a human cognizes and between what a specific relation is formed. Various grammatical, semantic and pragmatic meanings are cognitive relations related to language objects as linguistic signs or language acts. Context system is an aggregation of various cognitive relations and their elements related to a certain language unit or discourse. In this way context and meaning are unified in nature. The meanings in a discourse exist and are materialized in its corresponding context system. To interpret the meanings in a discourse is to reproduce its context system; to compose a text is to construct a particular context system. Context with mutually-related constituents assumes on a coherence feature, context makes a system as a whole due to various coherent relations between its elements or levels of sub-contexts and various levels of coherent relations are materialized by various cohesive devices. Context system is classified into three sub-contexts: cootext, linguistic. system and extra-linguistic context. A text makes a relatively independent whole by syntagmatism within itself and is connected with linguistic system by paradigmatism.The translation context categories cover creation context, understanding context, translating context, and reception context. Translating goes forward as a preceding context turns to a latter one. The contexts coexist in reality in a conflicting manner as well as in a harmonious way. But it is the conflict that causes problems in translating. There are three kinds of conflict: deficit, redundancy and interference. To solve problems in translating lies in realizing context equivalence by eliminating conflict to achieve complete harmony. Eliminating three kinds of conflict makes three strategies in intervening into the reception context: compensation, removal and elimination. The context equivalence principle guides a translator the way and offers a goal although it is hardly achieved in practice.The task of a translator consists in trying to achieve context equivalence to effectively convey meanings of the original in the reception context, by adapting to the reception context and intervening into it using language and various translation methods or skills to reduce context conflict to the least possible degree. The main activity is to analyze context coherence and equivalence effects in translating: in understanding, constructing, choosing translation methods.The thesis is made up of five chapters:Chapter 1. discloses the relationship between translation, meaning and context and finds out the research approach for the whole study—a context method;Chapter 2. expounds the theoretic basis for the whole study—a coherent context theoryChapter 3. applies the context theory in examining the translation process and analyzes translation categories and the translation principle—coherent context equivalence;Chapter 4. interprets the causes of problems in translating using a context conflict theory and puts forward three solution strategies;Chapter 5. offers an insight into the traditional translation methods in terms of the effects of contextual equivalence and coherence so as to defines their application in translating under the contextual equivalence.