A Study On Metonymy Translation From The Perspective Of Idealized Cognitive Models

Idealized cognitive model(ICM)is one of the important theories of cognitive linguistics.It is put forward by George Lakoff in 1987 for the first time.It refers to the abstract,unified and ideal understanding of the experience and knowledge in a given field,which is formed through the speaker?s understanding of the outside world.Thus,it is a way of cognition and an idealized mode of human cognition of the physical world.The theory of ICM has huge impact on the field of cognitive linguistics.Many linguists analyze various areas of cognitive linguistics from the perspective of ICM.With the rise and development of cognitive linguistics,metonymy is not just confined to the study of traditional rhetoric.Linguists have studied metonymy from the perspective of cognitive linguistics,believing that metonymy is not only a way of rhetoric,but also a cognitive mode.Owing to the universalities and differences between different cultures,it is found that some metonymies in one language have equivalents in another,and that some do not have exact equivalents.Although corresponding mode of metonymy in different languages can be found,the way of expression between two languages is different.Therefore,different skills and strategies should be adopted for the metonymy translation.Tang poetry is one of the outstanding cultural heritages of our country as well as a bright pearl in the world cultural treasures.As one of the outstanding cultural heritages of our country to be spread to the outside world,the translation of Tang poetry is crucial.Xu Yuan Chong?s English version of 300 Tang poems is the most important landmark for a study on the translation of Tang poetry.Ezra Pound,as a famous American poet,also carries out a fruitful study and translation of Tang poetry.However,due to different cultural backgrounds,his translation is quite different from Xu Yuanchong?s,which is also reflected in the translation of metonymy.Based on the theory of idealized cognitive models,this thesis expounds the four kinds of structuring models of idealized cognitive models,including the propositional model,the image-schema,metaphorical mapping model and metonymic mapping model,and discusses the relationship among the four idealized cognitive models in detail as well as the connection between the idealized cognitive models and translation.This thesis mainly adopts the qualitative analysis method and case analysis method and takes Tang poetry as corpus to study the English-Chinese translation of five kinds of metonymy from the perspective of idealized cognitive model.Based on the above study,the author of this thesis proposes some translation principles and strategies.It can be concluded that according to the equivalence principle,the translation of Tang poetry can be divided into five types from the perspective of idealized cognitive model,that according to the translation of five types of metonymy of Tang poetry,the translation strategies also can be divided into five types,and that the application of idealized cognitive model to the metonymy translation of Tang poetry provides a new view for the study of metonymy translation.