A Comparative Study Of Three English Versions Of Gan Xiao Liu Ji From The Perspective Of Cognitive Construal

Gan Xiao Liu Ji was written in 1980.In its simple and subtle style,the author Yang Jiang depicts relatively common trivialities in the cadre school.It deliberately skirts the detailed descriptions of people’s sufferings and rarely shows emotional outbursts,but occasionally adds the author’s insightful points and comments.In 1981,the publication of Gan Xiao Liu Ji in Hong Kong received the attention of translators.Goldblatt’s version Six Chapters from My Life “Downunder” was first published in the journal Renditions in the autumn of 1981 and then republished as a book in 1983.Washington University Press reprinted it in 1984.Australian sinologist Geremie Barmé finished his version A Cadre School Life: Six Chapters in 1981 and published it in 1982 in Hong Kong.Later in 1986,a Chinese scholar living in the U.S.named Djang Chu published his version Six Chapters of Life in a Cadre School: Memoirs from China’s Cultural Revolution.All three English versions have been touched upon in researches abroad and at home,but there are a small number of researches involving comparative studies of them(three English versions).Cognitive translatology has been advancing rapidly in recent years,as an increasing number of concepts and theories in cognitive linguistics are applied to translation studies.Under these circumstances,construal,proposed by cognitive linguist Langacker,is also successively developed and used in translation studies by some scholars.Based on Langacker’s theoretical framework of cognitive grammar,construal can be divided into several dimensions: specificity,scope,perspective,prominence,etc.It offers a relatively objective approach to analyze and compare translation cases and helps to reflect translators’ subjectivity and creativity.This study conducts comparative research of three English versions of Gan Xiao Liu Ji from the perspective of cognitive construal.After careful comparison between the three English versions and the original text,it is found that three translations present their characteristics in construal operations.Barmé’s version emphasizes the adjustment and rewriting of the original text so that its expressivity and emotionality are increased to a large extent,and its construal pattern is more in line with linguistic convention in the target language.Whereas,its overstatement and over-rewriting,particularly in the dimension of specificity,occasionally distort the original information and even mislead the target readers.Goldblatt’s version,in general,is exceedingly faithful to the construal pattern of the original text.In the meantime,it tries to avoid unnecessary explanations so that target readers have more space for extensive imagination.Djang Chu’s version,apart from its manifestation of Chinese cultural elements and its profound interpretation of implications in the source text,makes slight adjustments in some dimensions,particularly the dimension of perspective,for more expressive depiction and better conformity to the linguistic convention in the target language,on the premise of maintaining the original information.In this study,some assumptions of underlying triggering factors that may affect translators’ construal operations are provided as well.