4.5.2 Representation of image-G at sentential leve...
A sentence,in pragmatic sense,is the largest linguistic unit that a grammatical structure could be assigned.It is also the fundamental semantic unit realizing propositions for coherent semanteme of verbal communication in discourse space(Hockett,1988).From the cognitive perspective,translators adopt it as the ideational scaffolding unit and cognitive processing unit in their embodied conceptualization of discourse space.Sentential attributes have various degrees of dynamism,from mostly static attributes,like grammatical-pragmatic and semanticpragmatic issues,to highly dynamic ones,like textual conformity and register integration.The fact that interconnected conceptual meaning and sentential coherence are the necessary condition for the construction of coherent textual representation reinforces the view that embodied image schemata is a cognitive basis underlying the construction of sentences.As a discourse component,a sentence topic is actually a cognitive reference point in the course of coordinating specific bases,domains and other cognitive networks.It stands at decisive and ruling position in the construction of sentences,which could therefore integrates linguistic aboutness and relevance into the scope of a sentence topic.The structure of a sentence topic has been unanimously held as a dynamic concept,which generates from human's sequential mental path.As Goldberg pointed out,the construction of a sentence topic which corresponds to basic sentence types encodes as their central senses event type that are basic to human experience(Johnson,1987).It provides contextual support and cognitive bolstering for the accurate interpretation of relations between sentential items,while sentential items form“texture”of a discourse.It would thus be expected that the cognitive construal of image-G in discourse space at sentential level could be examined from various dynamic construal dimensions like mental scanning,scope,perspective,and profiling,highlighting,semantic focus.(https://www.daowen.com)
Conceptual integration can be adopted as cognitive operating mechanism without which translators'construal of image-G at sentential level would be chaotic and incomprehensible.Conceptual integration is not only a more or less unconscious process involved in interpreting linguistic utterances,but also a deliberately chosen problem-solving strategy.When sentential topic triggers the ideation base in translators'embodied mind,linguistic aboutness and relevance could be invoked to fill in default values of literal representation concerned in image-G construal.The construal of default values of sentential representation from semantic concept to linguistic content does not in itself tell translators anything about what the image-G presents.To accomplish this,translators'subjectival psychic reality in their construal of semantic concept must be assigned a cognitive interpretation or value,at which point,the sentential topic that represents the proposition expressed by the original natural language sentences,must be matched with the cognitive operating mechanism it reflects.Assigning default values and matching the proposition to the cognitive operating mechanism it reflects is a coherent integration.To be specific,the activation of idealized cognitive model,the relevance of sentential conceptual element and the inferential assumption of schematic structures are involved in translators'construal of the representation of image-G at sentential level.The fact that all these integrations are the result of telescoping the representation of image-G at sentential level into a new one suggests that it has undergone a process of conceptual projection and semantic composition from input spaces to an integrated space.