A Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of Robinson Crusoe From The Perspective Of Construal Mechanism

The famous British novelist Daniel Defoe's adventure novel Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719.In the past three hundred years,the novel has been welcomed by many readers from various countries including China,with its simple and humorous language,simple relationship between the characters and simple plot.In the form of“memoirs”,the novel describes an adventure story about Robinson Crusoe in an isolated island.The young man Robinson Crusoe is uneasy and adventurous.He ignores his father's advice and insists on going to sea for business,three times to South America.One day,his ship came across shipwreck in the Pacific and all people on the ship died except him.He drifted to an isolated island.From then on,he labored on the island,worked hard in order to live on.Year by year,he was accompanied by loneliness,and the Bible became his spiritual support.Then,he saved a native man and took him as a servant and called him“Friday”.He overcame unimaginable hardships,lived independently on the island for 28 years.This is really a great wonder for the people in the 18^th century.Today,many postcolonial critics take the novel as a unique imperial narrative.Undoubtedly,Robinson Crusoe has been regarded as a world classic work.Robinson Crusoe was first translated into Chinese in the early 20^th century.In the past one hundred years,there have been more than 100 Chinese versions of the novel,which is a miracle in the field of literary translation.Therefore,it is no exaggeration to say that the translation and dissemination of the novel in China is an important event in the cultural exchanges between China and UK in the past one hundred years.Hence,it is a cultural event worthy of careful consideration in the academic circles.In the precious studies of literary translation,Robinson Crusoe has always been a hot topic.But,most scholars pay more attention to the comparative study between the target text and the original text,to evaluate the quality of the translation.Some scholars discuss the translation from the perspective of cultural manipulation.Still some scholars have also discussed the translators'subjectivity in the literary translation,but most of them put forward some vague explanations from the perspective of translators'educational background,life experience and personality.With the development of cognitive science and cognitive approach to translation,translation process and translators'role have been gradually incorporated into the category of literary translation studies,providing a more objective and scientific way for us to understand translators'subjectivity.This thesis uses the theory of cognitive linguistics to explain the translators'subjectivity in the translation of Robinson Crusoe.In the framework of cognitive grammar,Langacker puts forward a main way of human cognition—“Construal”.And it is defined as“People have abilities to understand the same scene in different ways”.It includes five dimensions:specificity,scope,background,perspective and salience.With construal mechanism,Langacker tries to explain why people choose different expressions when they are confronting the same scene.Based on Langacker's construal theory,this paper chooses two Chinese versions—Xu Xiacun's version and Guo Jianzhong's version for analysis,intending to examine the working mechanism of the translator's subjectivity from construal perspective and revealing the cognitive processing that leads to different translation products.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter one is introduction,including the research background,significance of the study and the layout of the thesis.Chapter two is literature review.It summarizes the translation history of Robinson Crusoe in China,with a particular focus on three important Chinese versions,and presents a critical review of the previous researches.Chapter three is the introduction of the theoretical framework.It explains the core concepts of construal mechanism and their application in literary translation.Chapter four is the key part of this paper.Based on the analysis and explanation of the two selected Chinese versions from five aspects of construal mechanism,it aims at unfolding the cognitive mechanism of subjectivity in the translator's choice.And Chapter five is conclusion.Through the research,this thesis finds that translation of literary works involves the translator's cognitive processing and the cognitive approach to translation provides us with a rather objective perspective to examine the translator's subjectivity.Moreover,“Construal mechanism”is an effective approach to explain the operating mechanism of literary translation,and this perspective makes it possible for the researchers to reveal the cognitive dimensions that produce different translation products.