A Conceptual Integrational Approach To The Translation Of Animal Idioms In Chinese

Animal idioms deriving from literature, allegory, fable and folk sayings vividly reflect man’s experience of the outside world and his/her affection towards certain animals. This is particularly true in case of Chinese idioms describing animals which are pleasant in forms and which with their musical pronunciation radiate the wisdom and intelligence of our ancestors. However, due to the unique properties of Chinese animal idioms, they become the obstacle for cross-cultural communication. Scholars who take linguistic approaches to Chinese and English animal idioms are from the angles of cultural research, semantics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics and translation. Some scholars have set foot on the translation of animal idioms from either micro (i.e. product-oriented and process-oriented approaches) or macro views (such as culture factor, gender, politics, and history). Macro view confines to the study of outside factors which may affect transference of source text and hardly touches the essence of translation. Product-oriented translation approach attaches too much to the source and target text, which holds that the essence of idiom translation is the transference of meaning and message from one context to another and meaning is something objective moving along the path-schema. However, the role of translator who is responsible for the fulfillment of cross-cultural communication is largely ignored. Process-oriented translation approach focuses on the underlying psycholinguistic processes involved in translation. But they are confined too much to the offline, unsystematic data analysis and cannot reveal the real online psychological reality of translators in the process of translation. What has missed currently is the theory to bridge the micro and macro approaches.Conceptual Integration Theory (CIT) developed from Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Mental Space, is expected to fill the gap that macro and micro views cannot cover. According to CIT, meaning is neither subjective nor objective. It is an online construction in which the translator integrates on-going aspects of perceptual and conceptual information with more abstract information framework available from bodily experience. The process of translation can be understood as online dynamic integration of mental spaces. Mandelblit (1997) and Wang (2004) suggest a dual integration process of translation including de-integration of source text and the reintegration of the inputs. Some scholars believe that the translation process is the outcome of conceptual integration of Source Text Space and Translator Space with the guidance of Generic Space. There are some counterpart connections between input spaces which enable elements partially map each other in the inputs and then selectively project into the blend space with the guidance of Generic Space. The construction of the blend involves three operations:composition, completion and elaboration. Elaboration develops the blend via mental simulation grounded on principles and logic in the blend. It is elaboration that makes different translator develop different emergent structure to the same source text. But not all blends are good blend. It is optimality principles that make the elements in the blend reconstructed dynamically and generated the new projecting relations that cannot be obtained from inputs, thus making the emergent structure operate dynamically.Following the views mentioned above, the author regards CIT as the theoretical framework in the process of translation and modifies part of the basic network model of translation in view of CIT, suggesting five spaces of a prototypical translation process: Target Schema Space, Source Text Space, Translator Space, Generic Space and Blend Space. Source Text Space is the integration of the author space and the source cultural schema space. Translator Space is put at the central of the integration framework in that the translator involves the unpacking of the source text, the derivation of GS, the conceptual integration of two inputs under the constraint of GS. At the same time, Translator Space also involves the projection of extra information (such as the translator’s language competence, preference, intention, etc.) into blend space. According to functional grammar (Thompson,2008), people will choose different expressions according to requirement and real context. Different choice shapes the text of different meanings and functions. In the process of translation, translator is inevitably involved in the choice of certain wordings in accordance to particular context in which the idiom is used. Target Schema Space, is the mental representation of original conceptual structure in target culture, which provides potential meanings and available linguistic structures of the target text for a translator to choose from and to achieve the cross-space mapping. This thesis illustrates the structure, animal images and translation strategies of Chinese idioms in view of CIT, through which the cultural contrast between Chinese and English can be revealed as the major obstacle in cross-cultural communication. After analyzing the translation process of Chinese animal idioms in view of the modified CIT, the author suggests that the translation of animal idioms is the result of conceptual integration in particular context. Context is a dynamic factor involved in the yielding of emergent structure (i.e. target text), which makes emergent structure change along. Therefore, the translator is encouraged to take an integrated translation strategy to a particular idiom in certain context.The application of CIT to detailed linguistic elements like idioms will extend the theory itself and make CIT more persuasive. The modified network model of translation process can better explain the process of translation which is neither subjective nor objective. The reconsideration of the role of translator as subject arms he or she with adopting integrated strategies to the fulfillment of translation task, or rather, with consciousness of recreation instead of dull copy.