Mental Scanning And Metonymy Translation

Based on the theory of mental scanning, this thesis analyzes metonymy translation to find out the scanning methods used in the translation and its classification. Linguistic theories imposed a considerable impact on translation theories, and provided a new perspective and theoretical foundation for the study of metonymy translation at the same time. With the development of cognitive linguistics, the understanding and the translation of metonymy is attracting more and more attention. As to the study of metonymy and metonymy translation, Linguists summarized some methods and strategies of metonymy translation. Different types of metonymy should be treated with various translation strategies, and the translat ion of them also reflect different scanning methods. This thesis mainly discusses the scanning methods which are adopted at the translation of whole-part and noun-verb metonymy.After the analysis, we get the following research findings. Firstly, noun-verb conversion is a typical kind of metonymy in nature. We apply summary scanning to translate verb for noun conversion and sequential scanning to translate noun for verb conversion. This is also the key point of the thesis. Secondly, this thesis mainly adopts Zoltan Kovecses & Cunter Radden’s classification of metonymy. They classified conceptual metonymy into two kinds: one is whole Idealized Cognitive Model and its parts metonymy and the other is parts of an Idealized Cognitive Model metonymy. The translation of these two kinds of metonymy also shows different scanning methods.For the study of this paper, inductive reasoning is used to fulfill the aim of the study. Inductive research is based on inductive reasoning or thought which transforms specific observations into general theory. On the basis of summarizing the predecessors’ researches, it combines theory knowledge of metonymy translation and mental scanning to analyze and summarize the found examples.No theories exist in isolation. Analyzing mental scanning with metonymy translation further promotes the study and understanding of them, and provides a new direction to the research of cognitive linguistics at the same time. Then, it lends theoretical support to the research and the practice of metonymy translation in the field of cognitive linguistics.