4.5.1 Representation of image-G at lexical level
From the perspective of cognitive semantics,lexicon in literary discourse space is semantic frame-based.It is the linguistic categorization of human empirical system and its central thought is that the lexicon significance description must relate with the semantic frame(Barsalou,2008).Lexical semantics is given a linguistic form,by which it serves as a linguistic symbol for the cue of semantic construction(Brugman,1981).Thus,the precondition of comprehending the lexical semantics involves perceiving its semantic frame.
A set of lexical concepts in literary discourse is not only a subset of the entire set of concepts in the mind of authors,but also the linguistic symbols representing scenestructuring semantic content in psychological terms.Dirven & Verspoor(2004:45)emphasizes the connection between lexical semantics and mental representation as cited below,“The sense with the greatest saliency is the one that comes to mind first when we think of the meanings of a word.All the senses of a word are linked to each other in a radial network and based on cognitive processes such as metonymy,metaphor,generalization and specialization.Words are linked together in lexical fields,which describe the important distinctions made in a given conceptual domain in a speech community”.According to this view,what the empirical evidence suggests to us is that any lexis applied in literary works is an intersubjective embodiment of its author's mental representation.Lexical semantics is certainly not solely systemic functional linguistic meaning-not informative function,or in terms of relatively conceptual manifestations-rather,fits in as its cognitive construction within language users'cognitive thinking.(https://www.daowen.com)
Two significant cognitive structures that emerges from translators'construal of the representation of image-G in lexical situation are conceptual prototypes and image schemas,both of which have highly recapitulative and interpretive force for typicality effects of translators'recategorization.Conceptual prototypes can be understood as a schematic representation of the conceptual core of a category in lexical items.Image schemas are not just abstract semantic principles,but should be interpreted as translators'mental picture,which is more elementary than both concrete categories and allow translators to make sense of what they experience in their construal of lexical representation of image-G(Jackendoff,1990).Translators'recategorization of cognitive categories of imagery is the result of the proximity of these two conceptual structures and it is also the cognitive capability to discern dissimilar imagery as instances of the identical categories.The experiential grounding of lexical representation of image-G is an important component in its semantic category.Therefore,translators need to scan corresponding cognitive domains in order to perceive its semantic category.Cognitive domains comprise a range of conceptual content of lexical expression and intrinsic semantic representation of image schema as well.Conceptual prototypes and image schemas are conventionally corresponding,which means that image schemas offer lexical schematic structure for the representation of image-G and conceptual prototypes are applicable for the depiction of typical semantic features of image-G.