Translation Criticism On Narrative Picture Books From The Perspective Of Cognitive Poetics

As language hegemony is yielding to image hegemony,narrative picture books as a type of multimodal literature gain increasing popularity.The translated versions are in great demand,hence hasty translated editions flood into market.It's of necessity to make a critical study of the quality of translations drawing on a given translation theory.However,picture books' translation hasn't yet aroused wide concern,and there are few studies of translation criticism on picture books.On idealized cognitive model,figure-ground theory and conceptual metaphor theory in cognitive poetics,this thesis,from the perspective of readers' cognitive interpretation,attempts to conduct a critical analysis of English translations of Jimmy's representative narrative picture books respectively from verbal representation,visual representation and verbal-visual interaction.It aims to provide a new research perspective for translation quality assessment and also offer theoretical guidance for translation practice.The picture books analyzed include When the Moon Forgot,The Sound of Colors,The Blue Stone and their English translated versions.The major findings are as follows:Firstly,in terms of verbal representations,there are numerous instances of non-equivalence at the lexical,syntactic and textual levels.(1)At the lexical level,some English translations of Chinese address forms fail to achieve the original function of social,empathetic and cultural deixis,i.e.,accounting for pragmatic failures.Moreover,modal verbs in source language are mostly translated from modalization to modulation,causing inaccurate transference of conceptual and interpersonal meanings.Besides,translating multiple personal pronouns into impersonal pronouns is not conducive to triggering psychological and emotional resonance of readers.(2)At the syntactic level,the subjective,mental clauses in some modal metaphor sentences are translated as objective,projected facts,which can easily alter readers' mental location in textualworld.Furthermore,some clauses of mood metaphors are translated as congruent forms,impairing the emotional impact.In addition,many mental processes in source language are transformed into material and behavioral processes,thereby simplifying the structure of text world and diminishing readers' cognitive experiences.(3)At the textual level,some textual metaphors that play a cohesive role in the source version are lost in the target,affecting the artistic quality of the original.Secondly,in terms of visual representations,there is also non-equivalence in color configuration,textual layouts and page design of the two versions.(1)As to color configuration,great changes have taken place in the overall tone of the page and font color,unable to transfer the conceptual and interpersonal meanings what the original color mode implies.(2)As to textual layouts,the typographic presence and location of the texts have been constantly altered,affecting cognitive processing of information and creating different reading experience.(3)As to page design,reorganization within and cross the double page spreads gives rise to non-equivalence as well.Reorganization within the double page spreads involves the variation of image spatial location and the absence of single image elements,disturbing image meaning construction and narrative integrity.Besides,multi-page integration is constantly employed,which interrupts the narrative rhythm and progression,hence creating different narrative experience.Thirdly,in terms of verbal-visual interaction,the text-image relations are generally kept in the target versions.But there are also cases of transformations between complementary relationship and non-complementary relationship.Such transformations in some cases can cause information redundancy or loss,interfering with readers' cognitive experiences.As a whole,domestication strategy is prevalent in English translations of Jimmy's narrative picture books.Considerable adaptation of the source version produces the non-equivalence in terms of cognitive aesthetic experience of source-text readers and target-text readers.Thus,in the process of picture books' translation,as to verbal representations,this thesis argues that the emphasis should not be solely on verbal components,but on the translation situation including changes in emotion,culture connotations and social language at a macro level.As to visual representations,it's proposed that the original visual design should be preserved to ensure the realization of pictorial meaning and the creation of optimal reading experience.Finally,this thesisadvocates that excessive use of domestication is undesirable in that Chinese elements in the source versions should be preserved as many as possible to enhance the international influence of our country's literature and art.This study has both theoretical and practical values.On one hand,it provides a new perspective for the study of translation criticism.On the other hand,the major findings can be taken as reference for picture book reading or translation,consisting of its high application value.