| Recent developments in cognitive linguistics have provided translation studies with new theoretical approaches, among which the cognitive model is the most frequently applied. Cognitively, human beings get to know something new by projecting onto their mind the ideas of something they do know. Similarly, interlingual translation practices ask for mapping between the cognitive models of the source language (SL) and the target language (TL). Since the SL and TL belong to different language systems, however, they can never share an identical cognitive model and translators should find ways to make cognitive model transformation possible.Taking the author’s translation of Margaret Atwood’s In Other Worlds as a case study, the present paper argues that in translation practice the translator should take two steps to conduct mapping. The first step is to construe the meaning of words in SL in terms of encyclopedic knowledge, cognitive model and cognitive salience. The second step is to achieve the mapping of CM by changing the valences of words. When the target domain of SL is presented directly, the translator can adjust the salience of the valences or add extra source domain to the target domain. However, if the target domain of SL is presented indirectly, in other words, by way of mapping the source domain of SL, the translator can choose to maintain, change or even eliminate the original valences... |
