A Study Of The Translators’ Differences In Construal Of The Original In E-C Translation

Translation is a cognitive process which involves multiple interactions between language,culture and cognition, and between the translator, the original writer, and the reader. Bearingon translation studies, Cognitive Linguistics provides some theoretical perspectives for theresearch of translation, one of which is the construal theory. In the light of CognitiveLinguistics, construal is one of the core aspects of meaning construction and expression, andit concerns the conceptualization of a thing or scene in the mind of the language user, whichdisplays more or less difference between different users, and thus it can help attain a betterunderstanding of the relationship between the speaker and the situation that he conceptualizesand describes. Different translators might enforce different construal on the same sceneverbalized by the original language. On the basis of the construal framework of analyzing thetranslator’s subjectivity, the study attempts to provide some data-based evidence for thetranslator’s subjectivity in translation displayed in the translated texts by different translatorsof the same original text.The term “subjectivity” in this thesis refers to the speaker’s personal attitude and feelingin his linguistic expressions, which points to the speaker’s individualized expression ofhimself, and in translation, to the reader-translator’s specific discerning interpretation of theoriginal text and expression on the basis of his experiences. Here, it is mainly concerned withthe reader-translator’s individualized way of understanding a text and expressing in the targetlanguage. The object of study is the English novel Jane Eyre and two Chinese versions of it,which are reputed translations by two translators of fame respectively. The study aims toprovide data to clarify the translator’s subjectivity to some extent. For this purpose, inmethodology, the author makes a comparative study with a special reference to two translatorsand their Chinese versions of Jane Eyre. Through exploring the construal operations of thetranslators when working on the translation, the author tries to provide an objective view ofthe relative independence of the translator from the perspective of construal as a way ofembodied conceptualization and a theoretical foundation to the notion that there is objectivereason underlying the differences between different Chinese translated versions of the same English text.The four dimensions of construal can explain in a reasonable way the differences thattranslators display in their translation activities. By the comparative study of the two Chineseversions of Jane Eyre and them and the original text of the novel, the study finds that thesame expression in the same source language text will activate more or less different construalon the part of different translators, which are displayed respectively in the four construaldimensions of scope, perspective, prominence, and specificity. The two translators bothinterpret the original meaning in certain content scope of the original text, taking certainperspective, with certain prominence and specificity in their work of translating, which all arereflected in their translations. In perspective and prominence, the two translators displayrelatively small differences in their translations, while in scope and specificity, they showmuch more differences in their translations. In particular, the difference in specificity betweenthe two translators is remarkable. Though the dimensions of prominence and specificity areclosely related, the research result here does not get similar degree of difference in thembetween the two translations, which may be attributed to the features of the Chinese languagewhich is a highly paratactic language.Such differences in the four construal dimensions fully demonstrate the translators’subjectivity in the process of translation. However, they do not prove that the translators arerambling and arbitrary as the translation theorists that hold postmodern views of translationpreach. It also proves that there is gap between the two languages and the target languageprovides diverse possible ways of expressing the same information conveyed in the originaltext. From the analysis, it is found that the two translators both interpret the original meaningsimilarly in certain content scope of the original text, taking certain perspective, with certainprominence and specificity in their work of translating, which all are reflected in theirtranslations. The common ground and differences between the two translators in translationsand between their translations and the original can be evidenced by empirical data obtainedthrough the research.