Clasificación establecimientos de salud

In this section I describe the design and structure of my project and explain how the research will be carried out and why the theoretical framework is suitable for this research.

4.4.1 The cognitive stylistic approach

In this thesis, I argue that, by applying cognitive stylistic theory figure and ground. It might be possible to make an objective evaluation comparing target text against source text under the criterion of faithfulness. In China, faithfulness is always the priority of translation criticism (see 3.2). Apart from the focus on the intangible notion of ‘poetic spirit’, there is no specific framework regarding how to faithfully translate has been brought out. With the unspecified ‘spirit’-related notions, it is almost impossible to make reliable judgment. However, incorporating stylistics with

106 literary evaluation, it is possible to make objective judgment: Boase-Beier (2004a, 2006, 2011) argues that cognitive stylistics plays a significant role in the practice of literary translation.

Cognitive stylistics (it is also called cognitive poetics) has been studies in a number of key texts such as Tsur (1992), Stockwell (2002a), Semino & Culpeper (2002), Gavin & Steen (2003) and Jeffries & McIntyre (2010). Jeffries & McIntyre explains that ‘cognitive stylistics focuses primarily on hypothesising about what happens during the reading process and how this influences the interpretation that readers generate about the texts they are reading’ (2010:126). Hence, the stance of cognition in this research is to explain the mental process how readers reach the understanding of a text by conducting cognitive stylistic analyses on the specific perspective of figure and ground as ɤtockwell comments ‘the purpose of a cognitive poetic analysis would then be to rationalise and explain how that reader reaches that understanding on that occasion’ (ɤtockwell 2002a:7).

Because the focus of this research is on objectively evaluating English translations of Chinese poetry incorporating stylistics, one the side of cognitive linguistic approach, the foundation of the evaluation relies on the cognitive stylistic figure and ground analysis on both source text and target text. Cognitive stylistics has a linguistic dimension which means we can engage in detailed and precise textual analysis of style and literary effect. This could offer systematic comparisons between source text and target text based on these linguistic details. As discussed in 3.2.7, Jakobson’s point that ‘cognitive experience is universal’ supports the argument of this thesis which is that an objective evaluation of translation quality might be made by analysing the ‘cognitive experiences’ that readers in both source language and target language share from reading the texts in both languages. Precisely in this research, the spatial relations realized in both texts linguistically are chosen to the measure of the evaluation, namely, image schemas presented in both the source text and the target texts. The evaluation is made by comparing source text against target text which is a

107 commonly used approach for similar research (see Short & Semino 2008 and Boase-Beier 2006). By comparing the image schemas presented in the target text against those in the source text, the relatively objective evaluation could be made under the criterion of faithfulness as the cognition of image schemas are universal. Hampe confirms this commenting ‘cognitive models and schemas – including image schemas – can be seen both as expressions of universal principles at work in individual cognition and as properties of an underlying, “institutionalized” cultural “world view”’ (2005:6). This means that the cognition of image schemas which are primarily based on spatial relations is universal as the underlying principle across humanity. For example, the directional indications of up/down suggest the same spatial relations for readers in different languages. So, by setting locative relations presented in source text as a reference, it might be possible to evaluate how faithful a target text is to the source text by comparing locative relations presented in target text against the reference.

ɤtockwell comments that ‘cognitive poetics models the process by which intuitive interpretations are formed into expressible meanings, and it presents the same framework as a means of describing accounting for those readings’ (2002a:8). Applying the theory of figure and ground in evaluating the target text, detailed discussions is required through the whole analytical process in order to illustrate how these locative relations are related to the evaluation. Additionally, the data of this research includes one ancient Chinese poem and a small collection of its six English translations. Based on these factors of this research, qualitative analysis is chosen as the more appropriate method for this research than other research methods such as quantitative analysis or corpus analysis. Qualitative research aims to investigate an in-depth understanding of information on particular cases, and according to Jeffries and McIntyre, ‘the qualitative analysis of literary texts has traditionally been the mainstay of stylistic analysis and will no doubt continue to be so’ (2010:176). For the analytical procedure, I take three steps. First of all, I start with the ancient Chinese poem “ɤheng ɤheng Man”. As mentioned earlier (4.3 ɔata), this is a poem written by the female poet

108 Qingzhao Li in China nearly a thousand years ago, so there is a general interpretation offered for readers who are not familiar with it. Following that, I examine the source text with the notion of image schema in order to point out the locative relations presented in the source text and how they generate effects on the reader’s interpretation of the text. ɔuring the analytical process, for each instance of image schema, I:

1. identify the presence of image schema, 2. explain how the figure moves

3. explain what conceptual prominence the figure can produce

4. explain how the prominence might influence the reader’s interpretation

The summary of the instances of locative relations presented in the source text is used as a reference for the comparison of target text against source text under the criterion of faithfulness. Comparison is a method used in translation evaluation (for example Boase-Beier 2006). The introduction and the cognitive poetic analysis of source text will be included in Chapter 5.

Moving to the next step, this analysis of the translations is carried out on a one-to-one basis. The six target texts are examined following the similar analytical process. For each instance of image schema presented in target text, apart from the cognitive stylistic analysis, it is evaluated on how faithful it is compared against the image schema presented in the source text. The evaluation is based on two elements: the form of locative relation and the effect the image schema creates. Thirdly, after analysing the six target texts, I summarize the image schemas presented in each of them and evaluate them on the criterion of faithful duplication of the source text from least faithful to most faithful. I carry out the second step and the third step in Chapters 6. It cannot rule out the possible variations of interpreting source text and target text, but following the analytical process and these three steps, the outcome of the evaluation ought to be reliable.

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4.4.2 The linguistic stylistic approach

In this thesis, apart from evaluating the faithfulness of a target text as I have discussed it might be also possible to evaluate target texts against each other with an objective approach. As I noted, van Peer agrees that foregrounding (see 3.2.7) is a stylistic feature which can be observed in different language because it is universal. In this sense, the foregrounding features can be observed in both source text and its translated texts. But applying foregrounding theory might not be the most appropriate way to evaluate the faithfulness of target text against source text. This is because the linguistic system of source language is not the same as that of target text. As a consequence, the foregrounding features observed in source text might not be necessarily replicable into target text because of the inevitable linguistic differences between source language and target language. This means that it might be difficult to set up a reliable reference for the sake of evaluation. However, it might be possible to objectively evaluate various target texts of a same source text against each other. First of all, ɤhort and ɤemino (2008:120) confirm that ‘we can compare for evaluative purposes two texts which are similar in some function’ and target texts of a same source text sharing the similar function of interpreting the source text and express it in target language. Secondly, the comparison is based on the linguistic system of target language as a reference. So it is possible to make objective evaluation based on these two points. In practice, the checklist of linguistic levels at which foregrounding might occur (Short 1996) works as a systematic approach to analyse the possible foregrounded elements in a text and their potential effects on readers. This is not to say that foregrounding is a completely objective criterion as Verdonk comments ‘because the question of what is and what is not foregrounded against the background of language can only be answered on the basis of subjective impressions’ (2013:13). But applying linguistic stylistic theory of foregrounding is still, in some respects, a good platform for observing the process of evaluation as an objective approach with linguistic evidences.

110 As I have discussed in 4.4.1, considering the purpose of this research and the data, qualitative analysis is the suitable approach. I have also mentioned earlier that foregrounding theory might not be the most appropriate method to test how target text is faithful to source text. What might be possible is to compare target texts against each other. For the analytical procedure, there are three steps to follow. First of all, I will run linguistic stylistic analysis on each of the six target texts. Using the checklist (Short 1996) introduced in section 3.3.2.2, the instances of linguistic deviation and linguist parallelism are analysed systematically. These analyses include the explanation of both the foregrounding features at various linguistic levels and the effects they create on readers. At the end of this step, these instances of foregrounding features are ready for evaluation. It is worth pointing out that, for the purpose of this research, I use a selective collection of these instances for evaluation and those that are not selected are not discussed in this thesis. Secondly, based on the occurrences of foregrounding features, I select instances of foregrounding features. The selection is based on the criterion of whether they share a similar function, for example, enhancing the negativity. Finally, after the process of grouping, I compare the foregrounding features in various target texts on the basis of how the linguistic deviation or parallelism work to create effects on reader’s interpretation of the target text. All three steps will be carried out in Chapter 7. ɥhe coming section is Pilot study.