On The English Translation Of Chinese Idioms From Erspective Of Cognitive Linguistics

Chinese idioms are one of the hot issues in the study of cognitive linguistics, as many scholars at home and abroad have studied Chinese-English translation of idioms from different perspectives. The author finds that most scholars studied Chinese-English translation of idioms based on a single cognitive theory, but few studied it multidimensionally.Chinese-English translation of idioms involves multiple cognitive domains including language, culture and communication. At the same time, social developments and the change of the people’s thinking modes add more uncertainties to Chinese-English translation of idioms. Based on different cognitive theories, researches are conducted from different perspectives. With a single cognitive theory one can only analyze translation phenomena from a single perspective. However, translation is a complex process. Therefore a single cognitive theory can not cover every aspect of translation phenomena.The major innovation of this thesis is establishing a multidimensional framework combining conceptual metaphor theory, conceptual integration theory and relevance theory by starting with multidimensional cognition. The author places translator’s subjectivity within the multidimensional framework and analyzes translation phenomena of Chinese-English translation of idioms by taking A Dictionary of Chinese Idiomatic Expressions with English Translation as an example. At the same time, according to translator’ cognitive condition, multidimensional cognitive theories provide some practical translation strategies for many problems that translators are facing.