Mental Image in a Translational Transition; A Study of Selected Cases from Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar by Jules Verne

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Ali Abbassi ¹
• Sarah Sharifi ²

¹ Professor in French Departement, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

² Master Student in French Translation, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

10.22067/rltf.2024.89469.1128

Abstract

In the search for signified in the source text, it is the translator's thought that plays a primordial role. By reflecting the sentence as a symbol and its referent in the source language, an image is produced for the translator. This image crystallizes as the mental image or unit of thought in the semiotic triangle of Ogden and Richards. This unit of thought may or may not be compatible with that of the image emerging from the source text. So, during this process, how does the dominant unity of thought of the source text become concrete for the translator and his translation? And this concretization depends on what elements? In this research, by comparing the mental image and the unit of thought caused by the association between the referent and the symbol in the source text with the translated text, we study its modifications in this translational transition. This study aims to understand the phenomenon of the translator's creative thinking, which is based on the mental image emerging from the source text. To concretize the angles of the semiotic triangle in translation, we take advantage of certain propositions taken from Michel Strogoff by Jules Verne. The translator's effort to crystallize the thought he had received according to the original text is intelligible. Although a translational concretization is not a mirror of the thought of the source text, it can embody the original phenomenon, if it includes its semantic elements.

Keywords

• The Mental Image and Unity of Thought
• Signified
• Semiotic Triangle
• Equivalence in Translation
• Michel Strogoff

Main Subjects

• french translation

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