Semantic Deviations In Zhang Zhenyu’s Translation Of Moment In Peking:a Perspective Of Cognitive Construal

Moment in Peking is an English novel written by Lin Yutang,for which Lin has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature for four times.Among the Chinese translations of the novel,Zhang Zhenyu?s Jing Hua Yan Yun has been the most widely circulated for its creativity and artistry,and has had a powerful influence in academia.At present,domestic studies on this translation mostly focus on the description of translation strategies and the investigation of cultural reconstruction,and meanwhile,the translator?s creativity has attracted widespread attention,but few scholars have researched the translator?s subjectivity from the translator?s cognitive elements.Cognitive linguistics is meaning-centered.Langacker regards meaning as the conceptualization process in which people interact with the external world,and conceptualization is largely embodied by construal.There are differences in individual construal operations and therefore interpretations of the same text may differ between readers.According to cognitive translatology,translation is a process of cognitive processing,and as the translator is influenced by individual cognition,their understanding and interpretation of the original tex t deviates more or less,yet such deviation,namely,the semantic shift and divergence between the original text and the rendering,precisely highlights the translator?s subjective role and hence differs from “mistranslation”,the term that reflects value judgment.Within the framework of cognitive construal,this study takes the phenomenon of semantic deviation in Zhang Zhenyu?s rendering of Moment in Peking as an entry point,comparatively interprets the author?s and the translator?s construal of the situation from the four dimensions(focusing,perspective,prominence and specificity),and probes into how the translator?s subjectivity is unfolded in translation and impacts the expressive effect of the rendering.It is found that the semantic unequivalence caused by different ways of construal is mainly manifested in five types in Zhang?s version,including the deviation of linguistic meaning,voice,clause/sentence relation,emphasis and detail level.As for their cognitive causes,the deviation of linguistic meaning is due to the translator?s changing focusing(The deviation of word/phrase meaning results from changes in domain/scope,and the deviation of sentence meaning results from changes in background.);the deviation of voice and clause/sentence relation arises from changes in the translator?s perspective(Changing vantage point leads to the deviation of voice,and changing viewing direction leads to the deviation of clause/sentence relation.);the deviation of emphasis can be interpreted as the changes in prominence(The deviation of word/phrase emphasis is caused by the translator?s changing profile/base,and the deviation of sentence emphasis is caused by changing trajector/landmark.).In addition,the detail level deviates because the translator changes the specificity of the expressions.Finally,the author puts forward that the semantic deviations in Zhang?s translation have essentially reached an effect of overall return.As a special act of interlingual writing,when telling the Chinese story to the Western world,some of Lin Yutang?s English expressions may deviate from the expressions in local Chinese literature.During Zhang Zhenyu?s back-translation of these contents,he has made many adjustments to the dimensions of construal,resulting in the rendering deviating from the original in terms of semantic information,but generally speaking,the effect of cultural return can be achieved,such as restoring the connotation of Chinese culture,the fluency,naturalness and aesthetics of Chinese language,and restoring the artistic images of the characters shaped in a traditional Chinese cultural setting.However,it is undeniable that there also exist some mistranslations,thus reshaping character images to a certain extent.Compared with previous studies,this thesis clarifies the regular pattern and substantive role of Zhang?s semantic deviations,which offers a fresh perspective for the criticism of the Chinese rendering of Moment in Peking,and is a new attempt to explore the translator?s subjectivity from the cognitive level.At the same time,this thesis deepens the application of cognitive construal to translation studies and makes up for the weak link that few scholars have systematically applied the construal theory to the study of Chinese translation of English novels.