A Cognitive Linguistics Approach To The Differences In Lexical Representation Of Nominal Concepts In Chinese And English

Nominal concepts in question are mainly restricted to the basic concepts in our daily life which are equivalent to the conceptual meaning in Leech's seven types of meaning. Lexical representation of nominal concept is a linguistic phenomenon that the same nominal concepts are to be commonly designated on the lexical level between languages of different cultures. In these popular designations, languages of different cultures share great commonness because human beings possess the similar physical structures and interact with the similar real world. In a meanwhile, there also exits certain differences. The details and motivations of these differences have drawn the attention of researchers at home and abroad. However, literature available indicates that few of them examine the issue systematically in the case of Chinese and English and from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. This thesis therefore focuses on a relatively systematic and comprehensive analysis of the differences in lexical representation of nominal concepts in Chinese and English (DLRNCCE) from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and attempts to achieve three purposes: (1) to make a comparatively comprehensive investigation into DLRNCCE; (2) to provide a relatively comprehensive explanation for DLRNCCE from the perspective of cognitive linguistics; (3) to explore translation strategies for nominal words between Chinese and English on the basis of research achievements obtained .As a newly-developed approach to the study of language, cognitive linguistics is explanatory in nature. It not only provides a description of the language facts, but supplies a set of convincing methods for interpreting relevant linguistic phenomena and revealing human cognitive law underlying them. One of its important theories—construal theory, encompassing five major construal means: frame, salience, perspective, metaphor and metonymy—is tentatively adopted as the theoretical framework in this thesis to explain DLRNCCE. Before interpreting the differences, a classification of them has been conducted according to the semantic principle on the basis of analysis of 1655 linguistic data collected from three dictionaries and the previous studies. Two major types of differences are envisaged: intrinsic and extrinsic, which is further divided into seven subtypes. They are represented with the capital letters of A, B, C and D as AB/BA, AC/BC, AB/CD, AB/B, A/AB, A'B'/C'D'and A*B*/C*D*. The AB/BA difference is interpreted mainly from the construal means of perspective and frame; the AC/BC difference is motivated mainly by the construal means of perspective and salience; the AB/CD difference, mainly from the construal means of frame, perspective, salience and metonymy as well as the interactions among these means; the AB/B and A/AB differences, mainly from the construal means of metonymy; the A'B'/C'D'and A*B*/C*D* differences, respectively from metaphor and metonymy. On the basis of analysis above, the conclusion has been made that the differences in lexical representation of nominal concepts in Chinese and English arise mainly due to the diversified means of construal.In light of the above findings and the mainstream view of contemporary translation studies, the principle for translating nominal words designating nominal concepts is proposed: translator should try to realize both conceptual content and construal means of source nominal word in target language; and if this endeavor fails, s/he should discard the construal means of the source language and adopt the one consistent with that of the target language. According to this basic principle, two translating strategies are thus put forward: inheritance and reference. By inheritance it is meant that if the concept that the source nominal word designates is shared by both languages and has the word embodying the same construal means in the target language, both conceptual content and construal means of the source nominal word are reproduced in the translation. Reference is a translation strategy that if the concept that the source nominal word denotes is shared by both languages but represented by a different construal means in the target language, the word in line with the construal means of the target language is adopted.