The Cognitive Mechanism And Translation Of Slang

The paper aims at analyzing the cognition mechanism in the process of understanding and translating slang,in terms of cognitive linguistics theories based on experientialism.It discusses the cognitive function of metaphor in slang and shows the importance of understanding metaphor during the process of slang understanding and translating in order to find out more effective ways of translating practice.As cognitive linguistics develops,studies on metaphor are not confined to the rhetoric. Metaphor is more and more considered as a way of cognition and linguists connected their studies more closely with language which is a kind of expression of human thinking.Lakoff and Johnson's work in 1980,Metaphors We Live By,gives us a completely new perspective of metaphor study.They proposed that the essential of metaphor is to understand a kind of thing by means of another kind of thing.Metaphor is a tool of cognition and can help to abstract the experience in the world.In the daily life,people always get knowledge of abstract categories through their familiar and concrete categories and so a method of cognizing between different concepts comes about.Human thinking is metaphorical;therefore as an expression of thinking, language is also metaphorical.In the field of cognitive linguistics,it is believed that metaphor which is based on our experiences is what we live on.It is a mapping process from a concrete category to an abstract category.Language is the expression of human thinking and is also constricted by culture and cognitive environments.Translating practice which is based on language is certainly affected by cognitive factors.Translating is a process of transforming between experience and concept. It has the fundamental function similar to metaphor that is to explain an experience through another.Slang is an informal form of language which is more close to daily life and can reflect the thinking method of the people under certain cognitive environment.So it is of great significance for us to acquire more effective translation that we should study slang translation from cognitive perspective.