A Cmt-Based Study On Yang Xianyi's Translation Of Culturally Indigenous Concepts In Hong Lou Meng

Conceptual mapping is a cognitive process which takes place in bilingual's "black box" where the concepts are mentally represented. Conceptual Mapping Theory (CMT) postulates that an indigenous source concept can stimulate no ultimate mental representation in the translator's conceptual-intentional system and thus result in a memory-based link established via a set of cognitive strategies, i.e. transplantation, paraphrasing, substitution and deletion. Whether it holds true that the preservation of the indigenous source concepts through translation depends on how successfully they are mapped into the target conceptual system leads to the attempts to study on the distributional tendency of translation strategies of translation tasks.The present study applies Dr. He Yuanjian's CMT to focus on the strategy use of translating Chinese indigenous concepts in Hong Lou Meng (i.e. concepts related to idioms, etiquettes and customs, and religions) by Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Yang on the observations of the translators'strategies and the distributional tendencies of translation strategies, and then compare our data with his findings to testify CMT on empirical grounds.More specifically, first, three types of Chinese indigenous concepts in Hong Lou Meng are identified and classified, i.e. indigenous concepts on idioms, etiquettes and customs, and religions; and then a statistical analysis of the Yangs'employment of translation strategies in different types of indigenous concepts is made in accordance with Dr. He Yuanjian's strategic typology of translating unshared concepts. Translation strategies of these indigenous concepts used by the Yangs are observed in view of CMT as to see how translators deal with the cultural connotations conveyed by indigenous concepts and how translation strategies are distributed while rendering three types of indigenous concepts. Followed by comparisons with He Yuanjian's previous researches on indigenous concepts, the author explains why there are different tendencies of translation strategies in different cultural texts. Then, an insightful exploration on other translation strategies is made on the observations of the Yangs'translation of indigenous concepts in A Dream of Red Mansions, i.e. combining of the two strategies and relating indigenous concepts to metaphors or similes, so as to provide a supplementary explanation for the improvement of CMT.As a result, it is significant to the enrichment and improvement of CMT and the studies of the translations of Hong Lou Meng. Meanwhile, under the strategic background of the statewide promotion of cultural soft power, this research is of referent significance to develop China's soft power by means of effective translation of Chinese canons as to present Chinese culture to the world.