2.3.2 Image translation from cognitive perspective...
2.3.2.1 Cognitive psychological studies
The central tenet of cognitive psychology is information processing and its main theoretical framework concerns information processing model.Accordingly,cognitive psychology is also known as“information processing psychology”.Since the 1990s,a more objective method of empirical description in translation process has become the research focus of translation studies.The reasonable assumptions about translators'dynamic and complex cognitive activity could be achieved with the introduction of information processing models into translation studies(Lorscher,2005).Therefore,the descriptive study of translators'psychological cognition could be carried out with the aid of the theoretical results and research methods of cognitive psychology.Translation is essentially a cognitive activity that mainly involves various aspects of memory,thinking,information processing,problem analysis and the use of strategies.
Cognition is the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought,experience,and the senses.It encompasses processes such as attention,the formation of knowledge,memory and working memory,judgment and evaluation,reasoning,problem solving and decision making,comprehension and production of language.In this process,people generate new knowledge by using their existing knowledge.The processes are analyzed from different perspectives within different contexts,notably in the fields of linguistics(Taylor & Robert,1995).They play a crucial role in translation process and they are also integral parts of translators'translation competence.Studies of image translation from the viewpoint of cognitive psychology are mainly psychological cognition theory,topological psychology theory,mental image theory,frame theory and psycholinguistics.
Snell-Hornby(1996)systematically referenced the synthetic approach of linguistic theories,functionaltranslation theory and correspondence translation theory.By analyzing translators'cognitive representation,she advocated that integrated approach could be applied to studies on image translation.Her claim has greatly expanded the cognition scope of studies on image translation in literary works.She also proposed the psychological cognitive foundation of indeterminacy of image translation,which maintains that different translations of image in a given textual discourse can be incompatible with one another,but at the same time all equally compatible with the semantically relevant facts manifested by translators'representation.According to Snell-Hornby(1998),any image in ST can be seen as a complex multidimensional whole and the concrete realization of authors'ideal prototype.Her categorization of image takes the form of a psychological model proceeding from the most general to the most specific level.Venuti(2003)employed psychological cognition theory to describe image translation process,explained the brain mechanism during translation from the perspectives of psychology and information processing,and set up a translation model.He also discussed the general process of image translation and developed top-down model from the perspective of psychological cognition theory.Laviosa(2002)proposed both macro-structural and micro-structural models that exert an influence on translators'accuracy of constructed integration in image translation.His research indicates that psychological equivalence cannot be apprehended in terms of its accurate semantics of image,but can only be understood in accordance with proximity on the basis of close degree to translators'psychological identity.
Based on psychological metaphorical experience of mental space,Xu(2013)applied topological psychology theory to the study on translators'main subjectivity of cognitive schemata by a case study of imagery translation in Shakespeare's poetry.His findings show that imagery in Shakespeare's poetic works is a multi-dimensional meaning space represented by an analogous network,which is closely knitted by multilevel blended space and recognition frameworks.Xu(2013)considered image translation as a cognitive-unitized transformation,which can facilitate target readers in recognizing images connoted in literary works.The images in given contextual discourse are not“singular,closed or static,but multi-dimensional,open and dynamic”(Xu,2013:24).He concluded that psychological metaphors triggered by all imagery are also indeterminate and variable due to the fact that psychological metaphorical experience of translators'mental space possesses the nature of complete systematicness and dynamical continuity.Yan(2007)found the iconity of image translation is diagrammatic rather than imagic.It is not the diminution in translators'psychological framework that refers to image's literary association in any metaphororiented sense of diagrammatic iconicity.
Xu(2002)made an insightful conclusion on translators'effective psychologicalintegration between original imagery and their mental image.He pointed out that the constructing significance of translators'mental image is the matching distribution of holistic configuration that manifests iconic,indexical and symbolic modes of translators'interbalistic view.In the sense,the most prominent characteristic of schema preservation of original imagery lies on the fact that incoming facts brought by mental image are exactly fit for schematic knowledge of imagery,while that of schema reinforcement of imagery falls on the fact that new factor brought by translators is the distribution matching of the original imagery.Following Xu's(2002)research,Li(2005)suggested that the cognitive construction of translators'esthetic-psychological ability is conductive to the creative interpretation of the images in literary translation.The significance of the construction is to achieve the recreation of aesthetic images in poetry translation,which enriches and passes along the aesthetic images generated from the original poem.(https://www.daowen.com)
2.3.2.2 Cognitive linguistics studies
In regard to the study on imagery translation,the research method provided by cognitive linguistics may not be revolutionary.However,it offers a new research perspective that is quite innovative at any rate.The idiomatic methods of cognitive linguistics directly associate language and expression with human cognition and conceptualization,which opens a new door for valid interpretation of the equivalence in image translation.It also provides a theoretical framework that makes it possible to formulate several principles for the practice and evaluation in image translation(Hilferty,2001).Moreover,it can be listed as an effective instruction for the description,comparison and evaluation of linguistic construction between SL and TL in image translation as well as for expressing the specific ways in which semantic content is conveyed.Studies of image translation from the viewpoint of cognitive linguistics are mainly image schema theory,conceptual integration theory and cognitive imagery theory.
Zhang(2006)studied the distinctive difference between image combinations demonstrated in Chinese and English languages as well as differential association of their image schema in the two languages.This leads to a conclusion that translators should adopt specific translation strategies flexibly according to the dynamic operation patterns(the strengthening,modification,replenishment,and revitalization patterns)of image schema between ST and TT.Based on her analysis,the strategies of image translation are summarized in four categories,which deal with four image patterns of combination,coincidence,vacancy and opposition respectively.Yan(2003)critically adopted the method of cognitive linguistics and combined it with the method of the experimental psychology.He investigated translators'operation patterns of image schema produced by their embodied interaction with ST in terms of individual images and united imagery.It was found that the adequacy of translators'cognitive schema arranges the reproduction of individual images in a diversified arrangement pattern.It has contributed to the enrichment,deviation or deletion of semantic connotation of original individual images in ST.These findings suggest that the reproduction of united imagery in TT presents the trend of homogenization at a high degree.Wang(2013)studied translators'force-dynamic patterns of image schema between their mental construction of image and their conceptual establishment of aesthetic mode.He stated that translators'force-dynamic patterns practically are of recurring and dynamic nature regarding their perceptual interactions that give coherence and structure to their experience.Moreover,translators'force-dynamic patterns generate different aesthetic image schema in related contextual discourse,thus leads to the differences of aesthetic modes.The research concluded that aesthetic image schema is the transition and intermediary of force-dynamic patterns of image actualization in literary works from authors'creation to translators'construal.
By applying conceptual integration theory,Olohan,Maeve & Zahner(1996)revealed the inter-subjectivity role of translators in the process of image translation and analyzed ontology and epistemology of imagery.They also concluded that imagery in TT is the specific representation of image archetype in ST which is a pattern of translators'behavior and an inherited mode of psychic function.That is to say,conceptual integration of literary schema is a higher-level conceptual structure that organizes translators'ways of construing image as the combination of world schema,text scheme and language schema.Liu(1995)proposed two interrelated conceptual integration networks adopted by translators in the process of image translation,that is,construction network and deconstruction network.The former refers to psychological revelation and cognitive analysis of authors'mental representation of image creation,while the latter is based on translators'conceptual integration between input ST space and output TT space.The findings of Sarri(1998)suggest that translators'analysis focus and conceptual segmentation of image translation in their conceptual space are likely to vary.The results show that the selective projection from input space to integrated space is the external representation of translators'specific options of image translation strategies in the process of reconstruction,such as literal translation,literal translation plus annotation and substitution imagery translation.
Tabakowska(1993)introduced cognitive imagery theory into studies on image translation of literary works and laid emphasis upon translators'dynamic attention and mental scanning in their conceptualization of image translation.On this basis,she proposed four parameters in the analysis of cognitive imagery.She held that the cognitive operation of translation equivalence of imagery between TT and ST could be theoretically founded on Langacker's image theory.In addition,image translation was defined as the correspondence of images(scene construals).She argued that the corresponding image between ST and TT in literary translation was overlapped with the imagery represented in image theory of cognitive grammar.Alexieva(2001)proposed that imagery in literary works is a multi-layer structure composed of various types of semantics and is vested with varying degrees of prominence based on the explicit-implicit schemes.She also concluded two defining characteristics of image translation:One is the accountability of translators'textually-grounded intention of image between TT and ST and the other is the systematicity of image attained within TT itself.Ding(2001)pointed out that imagery in cognitive grammar actually refers to the specific way of conceptual formation in nature.Therefore,in the process of image translation,translators need to focus on the optimum degree of approximation of semantic signification in their conceptualization of image.That is,the relations between the translatability and transferability of image become more abstract to the extent that the common ground in the structure of the relations comes to form schema.He concluded that image transplantation provides repetition,parallelism and semantic cohesion for translators'conceptual configuration,which is laid on translators'construction of imagery mapping model.The mapping from the mental imagery(psychological schema)to image(literary schema)could be clearly demonstrated by the manifestations of different conceptual types of translators'mapping models.