The Metaphorical Cognitive Motivation And Translation Of Xiehouyu

Xiehouyu (hereinafter XHY) is a unique language form with characteristics of Chinesenation and an important part of Chinese idioms. It is created by Chinese people in their dailylife practice. The intended meaning of XHY is always implicit and it, in its nature, is ametaphorical language. Therefore, XHY translation has always been regarded as a difficulttask.The previous studies of XHY indicates that the most majority of scholars at home andabroad primarily attach emphasis on such topics as origin, denomination, division,composition, rhetorical features and its application in daily life as well as in literary works. Atthe end of twentieth century, with the rise of cognitive linguistics at home and abroad,cognitive linguistic theories such as Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Conceptual BlendingTheory and Cognitive Grammar are adopted by some researchers to study constructivemechanisms and translation of XHY. However, Conceptual Blending Theory, as a mature andauthoritative theory in cognitive linguistics, still has its limitations, as it ignores differentmetaphor cognitive mechanisms and cultural models of cross-culture cognitive subjects. Forthis reason, this thesis tries to conduct a study on XHY cognition and translation from theperspective of metaphorical homogeneity and metaphorical heterogeneity in cognitivelinguistics. Metaphorical homogeneity and metaphorical heterogeneity are identical anddifferent cognitive results of different cognitive subjects in terms of the same cognitive object.The uniformity achieved by different cognitive subjects in understanding a certainmetaphorical concept is metaphorical homogeneity. While understanding diversity obtainedby different cognitive subjects or the same subjects in different situations is calledmetaphorical heterogeneity.Based on the metaphorical homogeneity and metaphorical heterogeneity, the thesismakes a new classification of XHY and carries out a cognitive study on them. Then, sixcorrespondent translating methods are put forward in regard of different categories. As XHYhave metaphorical meanings, the classification of homogeneous XHY and heterogeneous XHYcan facilitate source language readers, translators and target language receptors to readbetween the lines according to different categories and thus lay further foundation for translators’ rendering metaphorical meaning of XHY.The main-body of the thesis is composed of four chapters. The first one makes a newdefinition of XHY and a detailed illustration of features, nature and cognitive mechanisms ofXHY. The second chapter proposes the cognitive motivation of XHY: metaphoricalhomogeneity and metaphorical heterogeneity. Then the correspondent classification:homogeneous XHY and heterogeneous XHY, is put forward. Meanwhile, it points outhomogeneous XHY is different cognitive subjects’ identical understanding of metaphoricalconcepts in XHY while heterogeneous XHY is the different cognitive subjects’ disparateunderstanding of metaphorical concepts in XHY. The third chapter analyzes the cognitiveprocesses of translating homogeneous XHY and heterogeneous XHY respectively. Thecognitive process of translating homogeneous XHY can be regarded as a process of staticmatching the metaphorical concepts in source language with the metaphorical concepts intarget language while the cognitive process of translating heterogeneous XHY can be seen as aprocess of identifying subjectivity in source language then achieving the inter-subjectivity andinter-metaphoricity between different cognitive subjects in source language and targetlanguage. The last chapter raises different translating methods aiming at different features ofhomogeneous XHY and heterogeneous XHY. For homogeneous XHY translation, metaphoricalconcepts are always retained. And for heterogeneous XHY, metaphorical concepts are eithersubstituted or retained with notes.The new classification of XHY is based on the target receptors’ understanding ofmetaphorical concepts in XHY, so the correspondent translating methods on account of thiskind of classification will make it easier for the target receptors to perceive the metaphoricalmeanings of XHY, which is a unique research perspective on XHY translation with certainreferential significance. Meanwhile, the research has its limitations. For example, pun XHY israrely referred to in this thesis, so in the further study, metaphorical homogeneity andmetaphorical heterogeneity can be applied to make a detailed research on pun XHY.