Journal of Applied Language Learning(JALL)

School of Chinese Language and Literature, Nanjing Normal University, China

Publications

• Research Article   
  Cognitive Misalignment and Categorical Reconstruction of Qi in English Translation
  Author(s): Ting Zhang* and Zihan Yu
  
  The translation of culture-specific items is difficult not merely because of lexical gaps, but because languages often organize experience through different underlying cognitive categories. This study examines the Chinese core concept qi (Gas), a radial category rooted in embodied experience and centered on the prototype of vital energy, and explains why it is frequently fragmented in English translation. A bilingual database of 49 high-frequency qi-compounds was built from the Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education and checked against the Modern Chinese Dictionary and Oxford Learner's Dictionaries. The static morphological comparison was then supplemented by qualitative analysis of authentic translations from medical classics, philosophy, literary theory, ethical discourse, and fiction. The results show a systematic mismatch: Chinese or.. Read More»
  

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