A Comparative Study On The Three English Versions Of Li Sao From The Perspective Of Cognitive Construal

In order to promote Chinese cultures and enhance its status worldwide,it is critical for scholars to conduct the translation studies on classical Chinese poetry.Li Sao,as one of the representatives of Qu Yuan,one of the most popular romantic poems in the ancient China,has great value in the history of Chinese literature for its unique poetic forms and rich imagery content.It has been translated into various languages,arousing the interest of scholars all over the world.At the same time,as linguistics has been integrated with computer science,cognitive science and brain science with its development,interdisciplinary research,such as pragmatics,cognitive linguistics and neurolinguistics,have been gradually carried out and applied to the field of translation studies since the second half of the 21st century.However,most research on the English versions of Li Sao still focus on the studies from the conventional translation theories and few study on the English versions of Li Sao has been conducted from the cognitive perspective.Therefore,the thesis takes as its theoretical foundation the cognitive construal proposed by Ronald W.Langacker in Cognitive Grammar:An Basic Introduction.It selects David Hawkes’ version,Xu Yuanchong’s version and Yang Xianyi’s version of Li Sao as its objects of research.The research methods of qualitative analysis and case study are mainly used to make a comparative study on the three versions of Li Sao under the four dimensions of cognitive construal theory:specificity,focusing,prominence and perspective.The thesis aims to explore how these dimensions of cognitive construal will work in poetry translation and what the similarities and differences of cognitive operations are in the three English versions of Li Sao from the perspective of cognitive construal,ultimately providing a new research perspective for translation studies on poetry.Finally,it can be concluded that,firstly,the level of specificity can be operated at the word and sentence levels by the use of category words as well as amplification and omission among the three versions of Li Sao.Secondly,under the dimension of focusing,the three translators adopt the composite structure and cohesive devices,such as conjunctions and personal pronouns,to construct foreground and background at the word,sentence and discourse levels.Besides,the choices of different scopes,including the immediate scope and the maximal scope,can themselves construct foreground and background by means of literal translation and free translation,especially metonymy.Thirdly,under the dimension of prominence,the artistic style of Li Sao enables the three translators to render different parts of the poem more salient,such as its meaning,form and rhyme.Moreover,from the aspect of meaning,the different arrangements between trajectors and landmarks will confer different degrees of focus on the participants even though the three versions construe the same content.Last but not least,the dimension of perspective is reflected by how the subjects of conception are construed,subjectively or objectively,in the three versions of Li Sao.If the subjects of conception(the role of speaker or hearer)are mentioned explicitly,they will be construed objectively,even with maximal objectivity,which can be realized by manifesting the role of speaker or shifting the role of hearer.If they are implicit,the subjective construal will be construed on the subjects of conception.