Abstract
Interlingual reformation unique to translating or interpreting is a special case of bilingual processing at the brain level. It requires two languages to be alternatively processed as the input and the output. But the study of the related neurocognitive processes is a new frontier in translation studies. In this chapter we attempt to formulate a conceptually integrated and detailed theoretical framework for treating translating and interpreting as an act in the blingual brain. It is hoped that the framework will provide an up-to-date theoretical and conceptual foundation for extrating valid research paradigms and developing new methodologies for translation process research.
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- 1.
Chomsky’s (e.g., 1995, 2012) original term is “the Conceptual-Intentional System” and we expand the term to “the Conceptual-Intentional-Contextual System” for the purpose of language processing as a whole including a pragmatic element. See Kiparsky (1982) for the composition of Lexicon; Chomsky (1995) for all four components of the Language Faculty ; Pinker (1999, pp. 202–205) for the connections between Lexicon and Syntax; and He (2006b) for an assembly of all those elements. All figures in this paper are meant to illustrate the relevant concepts and relationships between them, as exposited in relevant theories, rather than the exaction of those concepts and relationships.
- 2.
A language-specific case is [carpet-clean]-er] where the specifier is derivationally an affix to the verb but semantically understood to be hierarchically higher than the complement.
- 3.
It may be that even for concepts that are shared across speech communities, they may be conceptually connected to different things for people speaking one language rather than another. For instance, people living within the polar circles who are no strangers to “rising in the morning in the darkness of long polar nights” may conceptually perceive “rising at eight o’clock in the morning” differently from those living in the equatorial regions. Nevertheless, “rising at eight o’clock in the morning” is a commonly perceivable concept for people across cultures.
- 4.
We do not concern ourselves with predictably many other possibilities, e.g., the mentalese extracted from incoming complex structures is encoded in a series of outgoing simple structures. We are just presenting a frame of theoretical reference relevant to our discussion.
- 5.
- 6.
Memory-paired decoding-recoding of complex-structures may or may not be possible, subject to research. Veteran professional SI interpreters we work with testify that this actually happens. Studies are needed. Results from case studies on translation are far from being conclusive (e.g., He 2011, pp. 77–90).
- 7.
The quotation is from the moto of the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Boston, USA.
- 8.
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He, Y. (2019). Translating and Interpreting as Bilingual Processing: The Theoretical Framework. In: Li, D., Lei, V., He, Y. (eds) Researching Cognitive Processes of Translation. New Frontiers in Translation Studies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1984-6_2
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