A Study Of Semantic Prominence Of The Marked English Nominalizations And The Mental Mechanism Involved In Their Translation

Nominalization is one of the most popular and complex linguistic phenomena in English. The popularity lies in the fact that English is a typical language undergoing inflectional changes. The addition of suffix realizes the transformation of verbs into nouns. In terms of the form, nominalization makes it possible to express ideas in a concise and flexible manner; it is natural to employ nominalization to achieve coherence. The complexity rests with the fact that nominalization, with the function of encapsulation and condensation, is loaded with more information than its source verb does, which turns out to be an obstacle to the full interpretation of the nominalization.The present study concerns the marked English nominalizations derived from verbs. The markedness is defined by the presence of the morphological makers of nouns, i.e. the plural form—s or the indefinite article a/an. Instead of being viewed as abstract concept, the marked nominalizations refer to semantic entities with referentiality and plurality. The process of the marked verbal nominalization is one of transferring gradually the action to the persons or things concerning the action. A nominalization can be regarded as "a condensation of the clause", whose interpretation is constrained by the absent components that are related to the source verb. The projection of relevant parameters makes it possible for the semantic selection of a nominalization to be determined by the different degrees of prominence carried by the elements involved in the corresponding cognitive context. The aim of the present study is to explain what implicit component is prominent in a certain context. It is intended to find out the operable approach to the translation of the marked nominalizations.Based on Bell's model of translation process, in combination with the theoretical framework integrating semantic componential analysis, the prominence principle, cognitive context, projection and the optimal relevance, a model describing the translation process of the marked nominalizations is proposed. The translation process can be divided into two stages: the cognitive decoding process and the cognitive encoding process. The decoding of nominalization restructures a dynamic process in the minds of translators with participants and circumstances involved, with an aim to identify the prominent semantic role of the marked nominalizations in the source language. The prominent semantic role may have various manifestations in the target language. A corresponding dynamic process is restructured in the target language, for the purpose of identifying the contextualized meanings of the marked nominalizations. Since the marked nominalizations refer to semantic entities, word-for-word translation would be the best way to produce fidelity.Translation is considered as an ostensive-inferential communication explaining intra- or inter- languages regarding the source language. That is, the writer conveys his/her intention by using a source language; whereas the translator, first of all, as a reader, fully understands the intention, and then translates that into target language. On the condition that s/he interprets the real intention, s/he can ensure the accuracy of the translation. The task of the present study is to develop the inferential process of the nominalization, reflecting the mental mechanism which involves the translation of marked nominalizations. On the basis of the analysis, the thesis aims to explain what goes on in the minds of translators, thus working out the rule and the procedure behind translation.