On Cognitive Context and Translation

（云南省文山壯族苗族自治州社会科学研究所 云南 文山 663000）

Abstract：

As the most popular form of communication， translation has been humans basic ability almost from the dawn of civilization， especially in the “One Belt And One Road” strategy times， translation is more important. In the translation process context play a very important role in peoples daily communication. Meanings of words are always influenced by the context. So context is undoubtedly of prime importance in translation. Context is generally considered as constituted by the knowledge shared by the speaker and hearer. This essay mainly talks about the functions of different kinds of cognitive contexts and the approaches to translating different texts between the English and Chinese under the guidance of cognitive context.

Key Words：context；cognitive context；translation；effects；methods；

摘要：在众多的交流方式之中，自从有了文明的曙光翻译已经成为了人们的基本技能，特别是在“一带一路”战略时代，翻译就更加的重要了。在人们的日常交流里语境在翻译过程中扮演了一个相当重要的角色。单词的意思往往会受到语境的影响。语境通常被认为是说话者与听话者之间知识背景的构成。本论文主要讨论在汉英翻译中导致差异性的不同类型认知语境的功能以及翻译方法。

关键词：语境；认知语境；翻译；功能；方式

【中图分类号】H059-4 【文献标识码】B 【文章编号】2095-3089（2016）34-0274-03

Cognitive context is from the perspective of cognitive science on the context of the formation and function and mechanism of the explanation， and obedient made by the cognitive context is to identify and explain all sorts of irony in irony communication， cognitive context bear the restriction and explain function， restricting function mainly refers to the use of cognitive context the speaker who understand irony and obedient irony restricted mainly embodied in expression， form and meaning choose two aspects， its explanation function is mainly embodied in the cognitive context that the glossary significance materialize and the learners' cognitive context reasoning can learn by speaker irony through irony to reach to the original express intentions.

一、The Traditional Concept of Context and Cognitive Context

Context Research has become a science， and today it is a very useful kind science. But the context is far from enough to be regarded as a true discipline， further scientific research is must. The scientific process needs further deepen on the context study. Understanding of nature and characteristics of the study will promote a new scope of the subject's progress and prosperity， because nature and characteristics will help us know more about the advantages and disadvantages of the context study.

There are two concepts of contexts， one is the traditional concept， the other is the concept of cognitive context. The traditional concept of context is almost all-encompassing scope， involving variety of subjective and objective factors of verbal communications. However， large attention is focused on the communicators own opinions by the pragmatics， and they just make a study on it from the perspective of cognitive theories. According to cognitive pragmatics theories， what decided the communication results is not the external context but the cognitive context. Pragmatics get together all kinds of objective understanding of one thing and by internalization to formatted the cognitive context based on their experiences. In the specific communication， the listener will be on the basis of the cognitive context of information relevant factors to explain the words， derived words meaning， revealing communicative intent. Therefore， cognitive Context theory emphasizes the communicative discourse in understanding the role of his own subjective perception， but the traditional context theories are always to pay more attention to the objective value， even they noted that the main communication， and the involved status， the relationship between extrinsic and specific content， they will be very few to noted the cognitive structure cognitive processes and ways of understanding the internal factors do in-depth discussion. In short， compared to the traditional context meaning， the understanding of the cognitive context will seem closer to the actual situation of discourse understanding.

Extra linguistic context or context of situation can be divided into two kinds： First clearly context， including the physical context and cultural context； the second is recessive context， refers to the psychological context， form is not that obviously， can not directly see， or easily overlooked.

二、Cognitive Context in Translation

Translation is not a word-to-word activity. It involves a lot of factors， such as culture， logic， deduction， and so on. Cognitive context has the functions of excavating cultural connotation， smoothing logical deduction and strengthening comprehension of a discourses intention. We will analyze the three functions as following：

1.The Achievements Concerning Cognitive Context in Translation

Context plays a vital part in translation studies. Regarded as communication from the perspective of relevance theory， translation is context-dependent. Theoretically， communication not only requires encoding， transfer and decoding processes， but also involves inference in addition. The reader's inference is based on the combination of context and utterance. In the cognitive sense， context is a set of psychological constructs （such as schema）， a subset of the reader's assumptions about the world. Context is not given but chosen. In the process of the reader's inference， the reader chooses those more manifest or accessible contexts. The degree of access or manifestoes is determined by relevance. Cognitive context is stored in form of schemata in one's mind. Regarding translation， to probe into the ST （source text） author's cognitive context and the TT （target text） reader's cognitive context and to re-establish the optimal relevance between them， the translator needs to study their schemata. Studies reveal that there are three types of relations between their schemata： （1） corresponding schemata， （2） defaulting schemata， and （3） conflicting schemata. The translator is supposed to adopt different translation strategies according to the different schemata relations. Moreover， schemata can be roughly split into content schemata and linguistic schemata. And cultural schemata as sub-schemata of content schemata play an important role in translation because translation is a cross-cultural communication whose one of the missions is to promote the cultural exchange and amalgamation. The thesis dwells on the analysis of cultural schemata and linguistic schemata， and analyzes the gains and losses of the different translation strategies.

2.The Role of Cognitive Context in Translation

Context has a powerful impact on communication and exerts great influence on the generation and interpretation of utterance. Traditionally the study of context mainly emphasizes the functions of the external world from the static angle and ignores the functions of mental activities of human being in communication， such as situation of context cited by Malinowski and register by Halliday. Cognitive context， put forward by Sperber and Wilson in their book： Communication and Cognition， is a concept which is different from context of traditional views. It is regarded as a psychological structure made up of a series of assumptions that have to be established and developed in the course of interaction of communicators in order to select the correct interpretation. To understand each discourse needs different contextual factors， so the hearer is supposed to build new context with the discourse proceeding for interpretation， so context is described as chosen and dynamic. Cognitive context stresses the functions of psychological activities of human being in the process of communication from the angle of dynamics and it accords with the feature of dynamics of verbal communication.

In the process of translation the translator needs to know the cognitive environments of the author of source language and the reader of translated language， then to choose proper expressional forms which can transmit the former s intend and adapt to the cognition of the latter. Therefore， in some sense， translation is the transference of cognitive environment. Traditional context is not powerful enough to explain the practice of translation because it ignores the functions of the subjective initiative of people. The thesis makes the comparison of the explanatory power of cognitive context and traditional context in translation from two aspects： coherence of the translated text and translation unit. There are two approaches involved cognitive context for translation study： cognitive translation and pragmatic translation. Translator is a mediator in the activity of translation.

3.The Effects of the Cognitive Context in Translation

Now that cognitive context is the basement of communication， how does it function in the process of communication？ How does communication successful？ Sperber and Wilson put contextual effect and processing effort to explain these issues. Anyway， principles of the relevance theory will be explained first. In the relevance theory there are two principles： principal of optimal relevance and principle of maximal relevance. As to the former， “every act of ostensive communication communicates the presumption of its own optimal relevance” （Sperber&Wison， 2001：260）.As to the latter， “human cognition tends to be geared to the maximization of relevance” （ibid）. That the first Chapter 3 Cognitive Context principle of relevance says is that “cognitive resources tend to be allocated to the processing of the most relevant inputs available， whether from internal or external sources.”（ibid， 2001： 261）.The second communicative principle of relevance is grounded in the first principle. The tendency towards maximization of relevance must be strong enough overall to help guide human interaction. Relevance is seen as a property of inputs for cognitive processes： an utterance， thoughts， memories， actions， sounds， sights， smells， and so on. What makes an input relevant is the fact that it is worth processing. What makes an input worth processing is explained in terms of the notions of cognitive effect and processing effort. Sperber&Wilson put forward a formula： R=Effect/Effort to evaluate the relevance of an utterance.

It is difficult to tell the conclusion as the cognitive context of the relevance theories will draw only in view of the traditional context. Because traditional context only notices the study of factors in language， and it doesnt consider the relevance of psychological phenomena， it is not easy to guide the previous translation， and then to guide other translation practice.

4.Methods of Translation in Cognitive Context

The criterion and principle of translation have long been the focus of all disputes in the field of translation. Based on "Relevance Theory "put forward by Sperber and Wilson this paper analyzes "Cognitive Contexts"， one of the major factors which influence translators 'understanding of the source text in the translation process， trying to find out the causes of such disputes from the angle of Cognitive Linguistics. As a matter of fact， the essence of these arguments reveals different views of the criterion and the principle of translation in different perspectives with unceasing controversy and compromise on “cognition" and “expression". The extent of cognition determines the level of translation while the choice of expressive m odes reveals cognitive difference. From the view point of “cognition "， different individuals ' cognition of the same thing may be distinct to some extent. It seems as if there are no def in it criterion for translation. However， in the final analyze， it is essential for translators to stick to the criterion of "accuracy" and the principle of “faith foulness" in selecting a proper "expressive mode" based on cognition. "Accuracy"， as the effect to be desired for the translation work， is a relative standard； while “faith foulness"， concerning the attitude of the translator， is the absolute principle.

As we all know that the interpretation of discourse has a very strong basement on the context. The understanding of sentences is achievable by the selection and construction Based on the context. People's understanding of discourse is not passively received information， but on the basis of existing knowledge and initiative to find inference in the context of language in a particular significance. Their reasoning ability is from the experience and the knowledge of the world. Association of the view thinks that anything are all related， the process of understanding discourse is to find association， if the association can not be found in the smaller context ， it has to need another Larger context， until it finds the association to make words under the Contextual effects. Contextual effects， that is， a relationship of words information and context provided by the language， it describes relevance are essential. Whether the discourse context has effect is necessary and sufficient conditions for the association.

"The operation of cognitive context regards the 'Bill of knowledge' （knowledge script） and 'schemata （Psychological schema） as the basic unit. is the state of the real world， events， and behavioral conceptualization of the typical structure or experience of the results. The Draft knowledge is the fixed unit of cognitive significance， under a particular occasion through the empirical scenario permutations and combinations it can form larger units or conduct 'mental map type. Knowledge draft and psychological knowledge is that communication participants Schema of People， on the matter of the incident， the scene of the expectations and Different parameters and knowledge between the different draft and expected， in verbal communication， then it will form the different psychological and cross-schema international framework through the permutations and combinations. Construction of cognitive context refers to people make use of the cognitive subject from their own beliefs， attitudes， knowledge to start construct the cognitive context. Cognitive context is varies with different people， it as a set can be understood as the perception of a series of assumptions and inferred from the fact. The true meaning will has a different directions with the different listeners.

Cognitive Context awareness is critically abandoning the traditional concept of context. Context awareness requires the communicator take some selection， capture and recombination in the process of understanding each contextual factors， the new construction and understanding of context are the two processes simultaneously take place. The finally understanding result is to understand the factors under the context of another discourse， and just do like it again and again， Context spiral up， and continuously become to enrich and complete. Master this dynamic feature of cognitive context， communicators can consciously Construct or reconstruct the communicative intent， which is conducive to cognitive context， in this way the context is no longer subject to passive， but active manipulation of language Environment， and to improve interpretation of discourse and interpersonal skills.

三、Conclusion

Translation is a more complex communication than that with a single language because it involves two languages. Whats more， cognitive context determines the meaning of a word to some extent. To get a correct and exact meaning of a certain word， sentence or text， it is necessary for a translator to study meaning within cognitive context.

After all， the purpose of the translation is to satisfy the audiences， readers， and listeners and so on. Different translation requires different translation methods. People should take all factors into consideration， especially the cognitive context. Meanwhile， there are many challenges for translators to face in translating different texts. Translation will undoubtedly become less difficult under the guidance of cognitive context.

作者簡介：

何建萍（1988-），云南文山人，社会科学研究。研究方向：英语语言学、哲学、社会科学。