The Mutual-cross Functions Between The Chinese Mental Lexicon And The English Mental Lexicon During Translation

In recent years, mental lexicon has become the key research topic of many fields such aspsychology, linguistics, psycholinguistics and so on. The researches of mental lexicon beganin the nineteenth century, Treisman firstly proposed the concept of mental lexicon in1960. Inaddition, McCarhy, Aitchison, Gui Shichun and other scholars both at home and abroad havemade researches on mental lexicon and drawn some important conclusions. Professor YinDemo, faculty of foreign languages of Xihua University, has put forward the theory ofBilingual Dual-double Structure, namely language and thinking structure system, knowledgeand cognitive structure system, basing on his several years’ theories and teaching practices.All these theories have laid a theoretical foundation for further studies of mental lexicon andalso have provided guidance for the research.Because of the mutual-cross functions between the English-Chinese bilingual mentallexicons in the process of translation, besides, the forward translation (L1â†'L2) and thereverse translation (L2â†'L1) play different roles, the dissertation will use the deductive andinductive methods to illustrate the mutual-cross functions of the English-Chinese bilingualmental lexicons in translation (L1â†'L2, L2â†'L1) and interpretation (L1â†'L2, L2â†'L1), anddraw the relevant conclusions and inspirations to provide theoretical and practical guidancefor learners of translation from the perspective of psychological mechanism of English andChinese information processing process of translation, basing on some relevant theories.Conclusions are drawn from the above theoretical deductive and inductive methods.Firstly, the English-Chinese bilingual mental lexicons play different roles in the processof the forward translation (L1â†'L2) and the reverse translation (L2â†'L1). When translatorsare dealing with the forward translation (L1â†'L2), namely Chinese-English writtentranslation, for their native language is Chinese, the L1(Chinese) language-thinking structuresystem and knowledge-cognitive structure system have always been dominant in the wholecourse of information processing; L2(English) will play an important role in semanticconcept, language structure, cultural comparison and language expression. At this time, in theneural network system, because translators’ language-thinking structure system is restricted tothe native language (Chinese) system and knowledge-cognitive structure system, the L1mental lexicon plays a main role in the process of the forward translation. When translatorsare dealing with the reverse translation (L2â†'L1), namely English-Chinese written translation,the L2(English) language-thinking structure system and knowledge-cognitive structuresystem have always been dominant in the first phase of the whole information processingcourse (such as the phase of information decoding, encoding, retrieval and representation).During the first phase, it has always taken a leading position. At this time, in the neural network system, because their language-thinking structure system is restricted to the L2(English) language-thinking structure system and knowledge-cognitive structure system, theL2(English) mental lexicon plays the most important role in the process of the reversetranslation. When the information processing process goes to the stage of the L1(Chinese)coding and language expression, the L1(Chinese) language-thinking structure system andknowledge-cognitive structure system will take the place of the L2(English)’s as thedominant position.Secondly, the information processing of interpretation roughly shares the same principlewith that of written translation. Whether in the forward translation (L1â†'L2) or the reversetranslation (L2â†'L1), their information processing processes embody the mutual-crossfunctions of the English-Chinese bilingual mental lexicons at different stages of translation,but compared with the information processing of written translation, the main characteristicand the difference are that the information processing of interpretation requires interpreters tofinish interpretations in a shorter time, sometimes even synchronically, thus the thinking timeof interpreters is very short.Thirdly, L1(Chinese) and L2(English) play different roles in the process of translationbecause of the different levels, different cultural backgrounds and different knowledge oftranslators. If translators own higher professionalism and have a better understanding of thetarget language knowledge, history, social and cultural background, they will be lessinfluenced by the native language-thinking structure system and knowledge-cognitivestructure system in the process of translation, which can result in a complete translation.Otherwise, if translators own lower professionalism and do not have enough understanding ofthe target language knowledge, history, social and cultural background, they will be easilyinfluenced by the native language-thinking structure system and knowledge-cognitivestructure system in the process of translation, which can result in an incomplete translation.Therefore, the differences of translators’ social environments, class ideologies, personalexperiences and educational backgrounds will inevitably lead to the different translations.