Space-Time Cognition Contrast between English and Chinese Reflected Through Plant Metaphor Translation

This paper intends to demonstrate the differences in space-time cognition by contrasting the English translations of Chinese PLANT metaphors composed by English and Chinese translators.The materials used for analysis are two English versions of the classic Chinese novel Dream of the Red Mansion translated by David Hawks and Yang Xianyi.The paper hypothesizes that Chinese is more space-oriented in plant conceptualization,while English is more time-oriented.We analyzed the cognitive reasons behind different translation strategies adopted for the same PLANT metaphor and verified the deduction from example analysis in the corpus.The typical PLANT metaphor analyzed in the research is the“root”metaphor.The results indicate that most Chinese“root”metaphors are“double-imaged”metonymic metaphors,which rely on the hierarchical correlation between plant components and the accumulation of spacial characteristics through multiple metonymies embedded in metaphorical projection.On the contrary,the conceptualization of“root”and“plant”in English pay more attention to the dynamic growth of the plant rather than the spacial relations between different parts.