Cognitive Analysis On Conceptual Metaphor And Its Translation Strategies

The study of metaphor has a long history of more than two thousand years. Traditionally, metaphor was always confined to rhetoric and was viewed as ornamentation of language. On the contrary, Conceptual Metaphor Theory viewed metaphor as not only a linguistic phenomenon, but also a universal way of human cognition and thinking, which constructed human conceptual system and cognition system. It is a cognitive activity which helps people to understand and experience one kind of thing in terms of another. Metaphor pervasively exists in the course of our cultural and art activities. Moreover, studies on metaphor translation strategies have drawn a great attention of scholars.In terms of translation, the theory of cognitive linguistics has provided a new angle and theoretic base for translation research. Generally speaking, most of our traditional translation theories were based on understanding of metaphor as a figure of speech, and overlooked the cognitive nature of metaphor and had been focused on static comparisons of differences between linguistic forms, literary styles and cultures. Analyzing from the cognitive perspective of metaphor, translation is a kind of cognitive activity that people illustrate or understand the experience of one language community in terms of another. Otherwise, translation could not achieve the purpose of cultural communication between nations. Metaphor and translation are closely related. Now that cognition is the foundation of forming metaphor which is the common core of expressing meaning in all human languages, it is not advisable to talk about rendering metaphor by avoiding cognition.Metaphors in the case study are collected from the famous Chinese novel Fortress Besieged. Ch'ien Chung-shu, the author, employs a great many of metaphors to create humor and satire along an essentially serious theme. Its English version translated by Jeanne Kelly and Nathan K. Mao has maintained an unrivaled reputation ever since it was published. A number of scholars write articles discussing the highlights of this version from different perspectives. This research attempts to: 1) probe metaphor cognition and its enlightening effect on translation, and discuss conceptual metaphor translation strategies applied in Fortress Besieged; 2) evaluate the adequacy of the translation treatments; analyze the' cognitive process of translation strategies choosing, and put forward own suggestions on some metaphors translation.The whole paper is divided into four chapters. Chapter one introduces the research background, significance and methodology. Chapter two and chapter three are case studies, categorizing metaphorical expressions in Fortress Besieged based on their source domains, and choosing two main categories to make an analysis. The isolated metaphors are combined as a unified system which is used in analysis to probe the inner systematicity and the metaphorical nature of human activity. In addition, this paper summarizes metaphor translation strategies adopted in the English version of Fortress Besieged, and points out its merits and demerits. Chapter Four is a review of the whole study by which the author of this thesis indicates that the strategy of remaining metaphor in SL should be applied as the dominant approach in translation while other strategies as the supplementary one only when metaphor in SL is impossible to remain because of the existence of the unbridgeable cultural barrier. Thus, the cognitive way of SL culture can be transferred to TL readers. Meanwhile, the translated version can remain enjoyable as the original text.