A Socio-cognitive Approach to English Translations of Li Bai’s Poems

Adopting the socio-cognitive approach and drawing on an extensive corpus, this book investigates the English translations of Li Bai’s poems produced by translators of diverse native language backgrounds.

This volume aims to construct a comprehensive socio-cognitive translation research framework to conduct a detailed and holistic analysis of the manifestations and impacts of social and individual traits in the English translations of Li Bai’s poems. Specifically, it addresses the following four key questions: How is context represented in English translations of Li Bai’s poems, and how does it influence the translator’s construction of meaning? How is common ground reflected and actively constructed in English translations of Li Bai’s poems? How is salience embodied in English translations of Li Bai’s poems, and what mechanisms govern the prioritization of certain translation choices? How do context, common ground, and salience account for English mistranslations of Li Bai’s poems? This study not only deepens the analytical rigor of SCA-oriented research but also broadens the scholarly discourse on English translations of Li Bai’s poems.

Highlighting the underexplored role of socio-cognitive factors in literary translation, this book will be of interest to students and researchers in pragmatics, translation, literature, text analysis, and cross-cultural communication.