Meaning Transformation In Translation Process From The Perspective Of Schema Theory

Translation is a cognitive activity. The translator reads the source text to obtain the meaning and then produces a target text, which is a process involving the operation of cognition. According to the modern cognitive science, language is part of cognition and meaning is contained in the form of concepts stored in human mind. As the basic mental representation units stored in mind, concepts are organized by schema. Meaning is represented by schema. Therefore, it is feasible to apply schema theory in the study of meaning transformation in the process of translation. In addition, schema theory has already proved to be effective in the study of reading comprehension and writing.Schema originate from the interaction of subjective entity and objects. In translation, schema are activated when the translator handles the source texts. The two basic operations of schema are assimilation and conformation carried out by the subjective entity. There are two models in the generation of schema. One is the bottom-to-up model and the other is the top-to-down model. Three kinds of schema are the formal schema, the content schema and the cultural schema. Schema can control the perception and action. It is often changeable. Scheme, a conception cited from Piaget's theory, is used to describe the operation and organization of schema. The larger and complicated schema is made up of smaller ones, and larger schema may be reduced to smaller ones.As we all know, meaning transformation is the core task in translation. In the translation process, a translator is probably not able to have a clear idea of how s/he obtains the meaning and re-expresses it in the translation texts. With the development of cognitive science and cognitive linguistics, schema theory has proved to be instrumental in understanding the transformation of meaning. Generally speaking, there are two sets of schema at work in translation process, namely the schema represented by the source language or that represented by the target language. If two sets of schema match, meaning transformation can be operated smoothly and...