On The Application Of The Figure/Ground Theory To Translation

Cognitive linguistics is based on the embodied philosophy which studies the linguistics from the perception of cognition.As a new approach to study linguistics, cognitive linguistics attempts to illustrate how we organize our perception when we notice the object around us.The foundational theory includes the following principles: the experiential view,the figure/ground theory,also called the principle of salience, the attentional view.Owing to being lack of the focus on the figure/ground theory used in the process of translation,the author will illustrate the positive transfer of this principle on the translation.The author argues that the figure/ground theory influenced by cultural,linguistic and personal factors can give a comprehensive analysis of the cognitive process in translation.The value of the thesis lies in applying the principle of salience so few scholars noticed to explaining the process of translation.A successful translation requires both the understanding of original text and the exact expression in the target text.Analyzing the sentence structure can help the translator to better understand the different expressions of different languages.When we translate the sentence into English,do we analyze the sentence structure? Different language systems have different sentence structures.Apart from finding the agent and the patient in a sentence,when we analyze the sentence structure,at first, we should focus on the difference between two languages.Through the comparison the two language systems,we will have a better understanding of the sentence structure.During translating,we are not aware of the process of analyzing the sentence structure but we analyze the sentence structure unconsciously.The process of understanding the meaning of a sentence is the process of analysis of the sentence structure.The author will explore the knowledge of the figure/ground theory and discuss the usage of the figure/ground theory in translation.The body of this thesis consists of two parts,in addition to an introduction and a conclusion.Introduction part gives a brief explanation on the contents of this thesis and the brief information of the figure/ground theory.In the first part of the body,the author first reviews the different scholar's view of the figure/ground theory and gives the definition of figure and ground.What's more,the author mentions the characteristics of the figure/ground theory in language and the factors that influence the choice of the figure and ground.The second part of the body mainly illustrates the application of the figure/ground theory in the process of translation.At first,the author mentions how to choose figure and ground in the process of translation and the different position of figure and ground in English and Chinese.And then,the application of figure and ground in simple sentences and complex sentences are illustrated.Conclusion part points out that translation activity involves an unconscious process of the principle of salience.Besides,it summarizes the limitations of this study,and puts forward some suggestions for further study.