A Cognitive Analysis Of The Metonymy In Song Lyrics And Its English Translation

Song lyrics,as an important part of Classical Chinese poetry,are the essence of Chinese traditional culture.Although scholars have studied Song lyrics and its English translation from many perspectives,the research to date has tended to focus on traditional literature,aesthetics,and poetics rather than the perspective of cognitive metonymy.Cognitive linguists regard metonymy as an important way of thinking and a universal phenomenon of human language,which is essentially a conceptual phenomenon and cognitive process.The universality of cognition is the translation foundation between different languages.The translation of metonymy is not only a matter of the conversion of linguistic signs but also a matter of understanding the psychological basis of metonymy from a cognitive perspective.The translation of metonymy is cognitively oriented.All kinds of descriptions in Song lyrics reflect peopleid perception and ways of perceiving the world,which is consistent with the nature of cognition.Thereforei,from the perspective of cognitive metonymy,this paper analyzes the metonymy phenomenon and the metonymy translation strategies in 300 Song Lyrics and its English version translated by Xu Yuanchong.This paper adopts the quantitative and qualitative research methods,discussing the phenomenon of metonynmy in 300 Song Lyrics and the translation strategies of metonymy in its English version from the perspective of cognitive metonymy.Metonymy in Song lyrics is mainly divided into Category and Member ICM metonymy;Category and Property ICM metonymy,Thing and Part ICM metonymy,Event ICM metonymy,Location ICM metonymy,Containment ICM metonymy,Production ICM metonymy,Causation ICM metonymy,and Image-related metonymy.In the choice of translation strategies,the translation of metonymy can be realized by adjusting the relationship between the vehicle and the target of the metonymy.The main strategies are the preservation of the SL vehicle;the preservation of the SL target;adding the target meaning to the SL vehicle;the utilization of the TL vehicle and the omission of the SL vehicle.This study has identified that:(1)Metonymy is ubiquitous in Song lyrics.Metonymy in Song lyrics can promote the understanding of the function and mechanism of metonymy in poetry by choosing h:ighlighted and important parts to replace the whole or replacing its parts with the whole gestalt perception.(2)For metonLymy expression of the source language and the target language with cultural commonness,the strategy of preserving the SL vehicle,preserving the SL target,adding the target meaning to the SL vehicle can be adopted in translation;for the metonymy expression with cultural specificity,we can adopt the strategy of utilizing the TL velhicle or omitting the SL vehicle,so as to maximize the meaning of the source text and make it easy for the target language readers to understand and accept.In addition,in the process of-cross-cultural communication translation,the strategy of adding annotations to the vehicle of the source language can be used to compensate for the meaning when the cultural gap is difficult to fill.In a word,through the analysis of metonymy in Song lyrics,this thesis helps people understand the function of metonymy in Classical Chinese poetry.The summary of metonymy strategy in Song lyrics also sheds new light on metonymy translation in the future.This thesis not only enriches the study of metonymy translation from the perspective of cognitive linguistics,but also provides a new direction for the study of Classical Chinese poetry.