A Study Of Translation Of Words In The Perspective Of ICM And Its Application In Teaching Of Word Translation

Words are the foundation of languages, and translation is the tool of communication. With the advancement of Reform and Open policy in China and the international role of English, it is significant to do some studies on the English-Chinese/Chinese-English translation of words.Based on the literature researches from some of the linguists on the English-Chinese/Chinese English translation of words, the related studies can be divided in to the following six parts:the philological approach to English-Chinese/Chinese-English translation of words; the structural linguistic approach to English-Chinese/Chinese-English translation of words; the English-Chinese/Chinese-English translation of words in the perspective of deconstructivism; the English-Chinese/Chinese-English translation of words in the perspective of constructivism; the functional approach to English-Chinese/Chinese-English translation of words and the cognitive linguistics approach to English-Chinese/Chinese-English translation of words. Since the former studies are more or less inadequate, this thesis absorbs the achievements from the former studies, and inspects the English-Chinese/Chinese-English translation of words from the perspective of ICM based on the background of cognitive linguistics. It attempts to achieve three purposes:(1) to explain how does ICM relate to the English- Chinese/Chinese-English translation of words; (2) to explore the advantage of ICM in explaining the semantics of the words; (3) to explore the strategies for teaching of word translation from the perspective of ICM.According to cognitive linguistics, the words in language are concepts which are formed on the basis of the experience people have on the objective world. These concepts are stored in human beings' mind and are performed by words. They are not arbitrary combinations of language symbols of sounds and semantics. They have cognitive basis. ICM is an abstract, unified and idealized structure of organization and characterization which is formed by people according to their experience and knowledge in a certain field when they learn and perceive the real world. It is a regular cognitive model which is stored in human beings' mind and is widely accepted by people. Compared to the traditional approach to explain and understand the semantics of the words, ICM has its obvious advantage.The cognitive linguistics also believes that the translation of words is a kind of complex psychological process. It is a kind of processing of the language. Language is the carrier of thinking, that is to say, the translation activities are based on the thinking of human beings. While, the thinking modes and the thinking activities are based on the people's experience on the objective world. So, the experience on the objective world is one of the factors to influence the translation of words. And this embodied view is one of core viewpoints in cognitive linguistics. In this thesis, the influences of experience on the translation of words can be performed by the constructing principles of ICM, the propositional structure, the image-schematic structure, the metaphorical mappings and the metonymic mappings. At the mean time, besides the four basic constructing principles of ICM, the cultural model is another important factor to influence the English-Chinese/Chinese-English translation of words. It causes difficulties to the transformation of the words. Since people from different nations have different cultural models.Since there are some insufficiencies in the traditional teaching of word translation, this thesis, which is based on cognitive linguistics, combines ICM with English-Chinese/Chinese-English translation of words, and arises some suggestions to the teaching of English-Chinese/Chinese-English translation of words. It is hoped to make some contributions to the college translation teaching.