A Study On The Translation Of Situational Contexts In Fiction From The Perspective Of Cognitive Psychology

In a novel situational contexts are the most important part for establishing relationship between characters and plot development for the whole story.When translating a situational context,the translator needs to make a multiple in-depth analysis of the situational context of the source text and accurately understand the meaning of the content as regards the plot of the novel through various kinds of information processing and integration.However,many translators only pay attention to translation strategies and methods when they are translating situational contexts.Cognitive psychology of translation,instead,focuses on the output of re-creation itself—through the translator,rather than on the wording and sentence correspondence between the source text and the target text;therefore,it emphasizes the importance of strengthening the translators’ ability of information analysis of the source text from the perspective of cognitive theory.The translation of the situational contexts in the source text,guided by cognitive psychology,helps the translator analyze the emotion,motivation,personality and other aspects of the characters.This paper,based on the collected data,the theory of cognitive psychology and related literature,explores the translation process,taking Henry James’ The Ambassadors as an example.It analyzes the translation methods of different translators as regards situational contexts from the perspective of cognitive theory,and finds out the key points that translators should grasp when translating situational contexts.The paper also analyzes the function of translators’ cognitive psychology in the translation process,and finds the relationship between translation quality and the faithfulness of translated versions to the source text in view of cognitive factors of different translators,such as different cognitive ability,storage capacity of background knowledge and professional ability.It probes into ways to avoid the logical error of belief-bias effect and the bias of self-cognition schema in the translator’s cognitive processing,so as to make translated versions more faithful to the source text.The author hopes that this study can provide a basis for further research and application of cognitive psychology in the field of translation between Chinese and English,throw some light on the psychological study of the cognitive translation process,and provide some fresh ideas and help for the translation of situational contexts in fiction.