A Study On The Dynamic Construal Of Conceptual Categories In Literature Translation

Dynamic construal theory is a new view on the construction of category in the process of human cognition after Classical Categorization Theory, family resemblance and prototype theory. Within the given scenarios, it bases on prototype theory, and applies individual cognitive experience, encyclopedic knowledge, even social and cultural conventions to define conceptual category in the context. It is different from first three theories, the dynamic construal theory emphasizes on the"on-line"constructing of boundary, frame and level which is appropriate for the cognitive context. This view breaks with the explanations of category which applies binary standards and fuzzy definitions of the past theories. The researches which apply dynamic construal theory to literature translation are not wide. As a communication method which is used to link up categorizations of two different cultural perspectives, its theoretical direction on literature translation can not be ignored. There are at least five thousand different forms of languages around the world. The biggest premise, in which the same or similar concepts exist between different languages, makes translation possible. To the literature translation, the most significant problem is how to transfer the embodiment of the due value from source text to target text. The aim of this research is to discuss in the literature translation, whether the dynamic construal theory possesses the instructive assistance to the process of translating and readers'construal process or not.So far, it already has been five formal English versions of"Ah-Q Zheng Zhuan"published. In consideration of the limited space, and the other four versions are old, so the latest version The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China, in which published by Penguin Press of Britain in 2009 is selected. Through the contextualized construal of this version, and then analyze the most important three attributes– boundary, frame and level. It has been 20 years since the last English version published; it has been 30 years since China began opening to the whole world, we need to reassess how Chinese literature reflects cultural essence under the frame of English culture.After analyses, we have conclusions: readers'construal and construction of category boundary, frame, level is real-time; under different cultural frames, target text readers'comprehension on Chinese cultural-loaded words relies on the constructing of context principally. To literature translation, the instructive assistance of dynamic construal theory is that transferring the default and inequivalent concepts between different cultures with the dynamic view of contextualization. Under the situation of needless full equivalence, the artistic conception and emotion can be conveyed to target text readers precisely. It needs to pay attention to some points that dynamic construal of conceptual category is not only a theory or a standard, but also human cognitive mechanism. The unconsciousness and empiricism of individual mechanism may lead to diverse comprehensions. And the analysis on novel translation can not represent all the other literary forms, so the conclusion is impossible to unify. This paper provides a new perspective for the further translation study: which regards dynamic construal as theoretical base, contextualize cognition as method, and discourse context is applied to define conceptual category of words in target text.