A Study Of Metaphorical Idioms Between English And Chinese And Their Translation From The Perspective Of Frame Semantics

Frame, a term originally used in psychology, was introduced into cognitivelinguistics and nowadays has been gradually applied to the translation studies.Translation, as a practical activity in human being’s practice, is closely related to thecognitive understanding of languages. Language, the product in the process ofcognition, embodies the conceptual structures based on human being’s perception,understanding and beliefs towards the objective world. Metaphorical idioms, as thespecial language forms, are remarkably marked with cultural characteristics. Theirformation and development are evidently associated with the economic, social andcultural backgrounds of a certain language community. Accordingly, the translation ofmetaphorical idioms involves much more than a simple transformation betweenlanguages and requires an overall and accurate interpretation of their commonnessand differences in different languages. The details and motivations of thesesimilarities and dissimilarities have drawn the attention of researchers at home andabroad. However, literature available indicates that few of them examine the issuesystematically in the case of both Chinese and English idioms and from theperspective of frame semantics. This thesis therefore focuses on a relativelysystematic study of English and Chinese metaphorical idioms from the perspective offrame semantics and attempts to achieve two purposes:(1) to provide a new cognitiveinterpretation for the similarities and dissimilarities of English and Chinesemetaphorical idioms from the perspective of frame semantics;(2) to exploretranslation strategies for metaphorical idioms between English and Chinese thereafter.A cognitive frame, in view of frame semantics, is defined as a rememberedframework to be adapted to fit reality, which combines the knowledge networks ofmultiple cognitive domains within a certain language and establishes a harmoniousnetwork between concepts and concepts. From a viewpoint of frame semantics,linguistic expressions function both as triggers to activate and as anchors to stabilizethe cognitive frames on which meaning in language relies heavily for its generation. The function of translators, therefore, is to find out in the target language thelinguistic expressions which help to activate the cognitive frames identical or similarto those in the source language. Because there exist great differences of frameconstructions among metaphorical idioms that are the linguistic expressions based oncultural conventionalities, the translator should reestablish a harmonious frameworkamong frame elements, so as to avoid cultural conflicts and to make up for thecultural vacancy.Though the studies on metaphorical idioms are non-stopping growing, thediscussion from the perspective of frame semantics is new and refreshing. This thesismakes a contrastive study of metaphorical idioms and their translation betweenEnglish and Chinese with frame semantics as its theoretical basis. Concerning thetypical features of metaphorical expressions, the contrastive study starts with ananalysis of vehicle similarities and differences between English and Chinesemetaphorical idioms. Then a cognitive interpretation on the similarities anddissimilarities between English and Chinese metaphorical idioms is illustrated in viewof frame borrowing. Frame semantics is further applied to the translation practices,where elaborations are made on the processes, three principles and four strategies thatshould be obeyed for the translation of English and Chinese metaphorical idioms.