An Exploration Of The Translation Psychology In The English Translation Of Taipei People

Taipei People, a short story collection, is Mr. Bai Xianyong’s masterpiece with rich historical feelings, sophisticated writing skills and elegant style, exhibiting long-lasting charisma in contemporary novels. As a popular and classic work in Chinese literature, it has won much attention from researchers at home for its profound connotation and manifold interpretations. But outstanding work like this should never be confined to the sphere of source language readers but to a wider range of readers in the world, hence the English translation Taipei People came into being in 1982, translated by the author himself and Patia Yasin and edited by the famous translator George Kao. Considering the fact that the author produced his own translated version of his work, many researchers have carried out relevant researches in that aspect, thus lacking width and depth in translation research and much of the research value of this translated work has been left unexplored.The concept of translation psychology appeared at the beginning of 20th century, involving conceptions both of translation theory and psychology, which can be deemed as the product of interdisciplinary research in a very primary stage of theoretical construction. Translation psychology has broken the conventional means of linguistics, culture study or semiology in doing translation research, and tries to explain translation by exploring the psychological process of the translator and the manipulation of translation psychology during the process, and endeavors to construct an interdisciplinary framework for translation studies. A text is static in the surface, but deep down it flows psychological forms, presenting itself by constant honing and polishing of the translator. Since translation is a language-represented psychological activity, it will be of great significance for the construction and development of translation theory by integrating both translation research and psychology.This paper attempts to explore the English version of Taipei People by means of general psychology, cognitive psychology and relevant models on the basis of previous researches and its translation reality at the interdisciplinary angle, attaches special attention to analyzing the translation psychology revealed in the English version, and demonstrate the significance of translation psychology in producing a successful target language version. Meanwhile, this research can further verify the feasibility and prospect of interdisciplinary research for translation studies and offer guidance and enlightenment for future practice and research.Consisting of altogether six chapters, this paper firstly introduces research background, significance and the structure in the first chapter. And the second chapter expands on literature review involving both the research on the English translation of Taipei People and on the theoretical development and construction of translation psychology. The following chapter illustrates the definition of translation psychology, its motivation and specific expressions, which act as the theoretical foundation for later analysis, covering grammar, syntax and discourse. The fourth chapter deals with two analytic models of cognitive psychology explaining the psychology in choice of complex language phenomena. What comes next is the fifth chapter which analyzes the formation and expression of translation psychology, as well as the application of the two psychological models in representing the linguistic features of the source text in the target text based on the theoretical framework of chapter three and four. The final chapter covers the findings and shortcomings of this research and relevant suggestions are put forward.