Publicity-oriented Chinese-English translation has long been a research interest and study is not sufficient concerning how native speakers understand the translation of publicity materials. This paper aims to fill this gap by investigating native English speakers’ mental models in perceiving metaphors in the C-E translation of publicity materials by adopting a cognitive sociolinguistic approach. First, by means of triangulation, metaphors chosen from the Journal of Confucius Institute were identified and classified. Then a gestalt experiment was conducted to examine native English speakers’ gestalts of cultural concepts in understanding the translation of the metaphors. Then a thinking aloud protocol(TAP) was followed to specify the process of mental actualization in coping with the metaphors. Meanwhile, the participants’ perceptions of the translation in correlation with their social attributes of age, gender, education, occupation, and length of learning Chinese were analyzed. Finally, the effectiveness of translation was discussed by exploring the relation between types of metaphor and acceptance of translation and further suggestions for translation were provided. The following are findings:
- Metaphors are classified into congeneric metaphors and heterogeneous metaphors;
- The gestalt experiment shows native English speakers have more difficulties in understanding translation of heterogeneous metaphors while for congeneric ones, translations of abstract concepts are more difficult to accept;
- The TAP indicates the difficulties arouse from different cultural perceptions, especially when translation involves transfer of source-target concepts between concrete and abstract ones or within abstract ones;
- The multidimensional analysis reveals there are certain correlations between social attributes of age, gender and length of learning Chinese and the understanding of translation;
- The effectiveness of translation is affected by discrepancy in understanding of metaphors in Chinese and English cultures, particularly when dealing with heterogeneous metaphors and those congeneric ones involving abstract concepts.
Key words: cognitive sociolinguistics, publicity-oriented Chinese-English translation, metaphors
References:
Kristiansen, G. etc. (eds.). Cognitive Sociolinguistics: Language Variation Cultural Models, Social Systems. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.
Xu, X. M. etc. An Analysis of External Publicity Text Translation from the Perspective of Eco-translatology - A Case Study of Huai’an External Publicity Translation. Theory and Practice in Language Studies. May, 2015, Vol. 5 Issue 5.
