On Poetry Translation from Cognitive Construal Perspective: Tian Jing Sha.Qiu Si in English

This paper is to explore the deviations in four English versions of Chinese ancient poem Tian Jing Sha•Qiu Si written by Ma Zhiyuan from the perspective of construal theory in cognitive linguistics. The deviations of the translations are measured from four dimensions within the principles of cognitive construal, namely scope and ground, perspective, prominence, and specificity. Since translation is a dynamic construal of meaning, it has found that the deviations mainly result from the mistranslation of the poem title, the different directions and positions of viewing images, and the special syntactic and grammatical features of Chinese and English. Besides, the subjectivity of each translator and the lack of background knowledge together exert a great influence on different linguistic choices in the translation. With different translation purposes and strategies, the focus of the translators on reproducing the same images will inevitably be different. It is argued that cognitive construal theory can provide a reasonable basis and perspective for revealing and explaining the deviations and the deviations in translations will lead to the misunderstanding of the theme of a text and the deficiency in presenting culture traditions.