Translator's Subjectivity In The Image Translation In Cold Mountain Poems From A Cognitive Translation Perspective

Cold Mountain poems were written by Hanshan,a monk and poet in Tang Dynasty,taking on a strong embodiment of Confucianism,Taoism and Buddhism.In the 1950 s and 1960 s,Cold Mountain poems were widely embraced by American readers and became the spiritual comfort of the “Beat Generation” in spite of the great differences between Chinese and Western culture.The popularity of Cold Mountain poems abroad has aroused the attention of domestic scholars,and researches on Cold Mountain poems have been abundantly conducted,including researches on the poet Hanshanzi,Cold Mountain poems and its culture and translation.However,few scholars discussed the image translation and less on the two translations of RP and RH.The present study,based on previous studies and Wang Yin's cognitive linguistic translation view,takes as the research object the two translations of RP and RH to analyze the exertion and restriction of translator's subjectivity in the image translation from cognitive translation put forward by Wang Yin.Based on the experiential philosophy of Cognitive Linguistics,Wang Yin proposed the cognitive translation view,arguing that translation is based on the translator's construal of the original text,and the construal is based on experience and cognition and subject to multiple interactions between other cognitive subjects(authors,readers)involved in translation activities.Thus,translation is the result of multiple embodied interactions and cognition.Translator's construal reflects the exertion of translator's subjectivity,and multiple embodied interactions indicate that translator's subjectivity is limited.The cognitive translation not only affirms the translator's subjective role but also reveals the limitation of the exertion.This thesis,with reference to the four dimensions of the construal theory,namely scope and background,perspective,salience and specificity,specifically probes into the aspects of manifestation and the factors of restriction of translator's subjectivity in the translations of Cold Mountain poems.We find that the translator's subjectivity is mainly manifested in the following aspects: 1)in the dimension of background and scope,translator's subjectivity shows itself in the lexical and phrasal level;2)in the dimension of perspective,in different subjects and different tenses and aspects;3)in the dimension of salience,in the position of the sentence components and the movement state;4)in the dimension of specificity,at the macro and micro levels.As to the restriction of translator's subjectivity,two factors are at work,namely,internal factors including the translator's personal background and translation view,and external factors including the original text and the target readers.The present investigation provides an alternative approach for translator's subjectivity research and expands the research contents of translator's subjectivity,and enables translators to become aware of their initiative and limitations and to do better in their translation practices.