A Study On “Deviation” Of The English Translation Of Huozhe From The Perspective Of Cognitive Construal Theory

Huozhe,one of the masterpieces of China's famous contemporary writer Yu Hua,has widespread influence both at home and abroad and it won the Italian Grinzana Cave Literature Prize.The English translation by Michael Berry has been highly praised ever since its publication for remaining faithful to the source text and conveying the original content very well.This paper attempts to approach the translation from another perspective: to explore whether Michael Berry's translation of Huozhe has reproduced the cognitive world and the real world that the author wanted to present.According to the Construal Theory,construal is the specific ways for people to form concepts or semantic structures and people show different cognitive abilities toward the same scene.The choice of scope,the change of focus,perspective or specificity will lead to different construal.Translation is a process in which the translator tries to restore the original writer's construal way.By reading and comparing Huozhe and its English translation,the author finds that Michael Berry's translation to some extent restores the original writer's construal mode and is close to the original meaning,but there are still deviations.This thesis tries to study Michael Berry's English translation of Huozhe based on construal theory aiming to explore the reasons for his deviation when construing.Another finding is that i n the process of Chinese-English translation,it is the difference of cognitive structures in two languages that causes the translator 's semantic deviation.Translation involves the author,translator and the readers,and their cognitive processes are different.In the translation process,most of the translators are mainly influenced by their own cognitive factors,and at the same time they also need to consider the readers' ability to accept the cognitive interpretation.Due to the translator's limited cognitive ability,it is unavoidable to lead to some comprehension differences in different cultures,which will result in different semantic meanings.In addition,the translator has adjusted the cognitive interpretation of the original text to improve the readability of the translation,taking into account the ability of the target readers.To some extent,this has obliterated the cultural factors of the source language,resulting in a cognitive semantic shift.This study hopes to provide a new perspective for the study of the English translation of Huozhe,to verify the possibility of the application of construal theory to the study of literary translation and to play a positive role in training the cognitive ability of future translators.