A Corpus-based Cognitive Study On Plant Metaphor Translation

Conceptual Metaphor Theory claims that metaphor is a cognitive means,which involves a cross-domain mapping from the source domain to the target domain.This has provided a new dimension for metaphor and translation studies.Plant is a vital source domain through which human beings describe people and things.The Tang dynasty’s poetry sees many plant-related metaphorical expressions,of which the English translation fails to receive enough attention.Many domestic scholars still focus on the translation versions of British and American sinologists and Chinese translator Xu Yuanchong.Besides,much research mechanically applies domestication/foreignization to the discussion of a translator’s strategies.A few researchers adopt a corpus-based approach,but most of them analyze from such dimensions as class/shape ratio,vocabulary density and average sentence length.In other words,their studies stop at the linguistic level.The above limitations leave some space for this research.Based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory,this study focuses on Three Hundred Tang Poems translated by Peter Harris,a contemporary sinologist from New Zealand,attempting to find out how he treats plant metaphor,and to explore the similarities and differences between Chinese and English cultures in the use of plant metaphor at both cognitive and linguistic levels.In this study,CUC＿Paraconc is used to build a small corpus,and a keyword list is created for fuzzy search of expressions containing plant metaphor,then MIPVU(Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit)is used for further identification.In this study,source domains of plant metaphor are divided into flower,grass and other plant types,and Xu Yuanchong’s translation is selected for comparative analysis in several cases.The study finds that Harris tends to follow the metaphorical construal of the original text,and consider the context and conventions of the target language to best transmit the metaphorical meaning.Specifically,Harris renders plant metaphor by reproducing,replacing,or expressing it explicitly in the target text.The study also finds that the cognitive styles of the two translators vary because of the differences in their languages,cultures and translation views,as well as their personal experiences with and perception of the physical world.Also,the study reveals that plant metaphor is not experientially and culturally independent.There exist differences between Chinese and English cultures in the selection of vehicles and tenors.