A Cognitive Linguistics Reading Of Rewi Alley's English Version Not A Dog,An Ancient Tai Ballad

Not A Dog is a famous ballad of the Dai(transliterated as“Tai”by Rewi Alley)people in Yunnan province.There is only one English version as of today,which is translated by Rewi Ally.There is little study on its English version besides that in Studies on the Translation of Chinese Southwest Ethnic Classics written by Liu Xueqin(???,2016)in which the author elaborately describes the translation style of the translator Rewi Alley.Yet there is no study about the translator's cognition and construal from the perspective of the Construal Theory of cognitive linguistics.With the introduction of western translation theory,translation criticism translation pays more and more attention to the subjectivity of the translator.The embodied philosophy,especially the Construal Theory of cognitive linguistics,provides very good perspective and method for the study of the subjectivity of translator.Construal is one of the main ways for us humans to cognize the world as well as the basis for us to form our concept and language expression.This essay analyzes the English version of Not A Dog translated by Rewi Alley with the Construal Theory of cognitive linguistics as the theoretical framework.The study finds out that due to different life experiences and cognition between the author and the translator,there is some inequilvalence or deviation between the English version of the ballad and the original text,which is the representation of the subjectivity of the translator.It is also pointed out that the subjectivity of the translator can be explained and illustrated by the factors of the Construal Theory,thus shedding new light on the studies of literature translation.