Literary Text Comprehension And Translation: The Role Of Different Sensory Modalities Interaction

Abstract

The study empirically investigates the role of different sensory modalities interaction (kinesthetic, auditory and visual) in literary text comprehension and translation. Based on Interpretive Theory of Translation (ITT), the unity of the sensory system organization concept and modality as a though feature theoretical framework, the modality predicates in 6 target language texts were compared with those in the source language text. A total of 6 translators with different preferred modalities (2 kinesthetic, 2 visual and 2 audio) participated in the research. The tests by Stolyarenko and Efremtseva were used to measure preferred modality. The results suggest 1) the modality of predicates in the source and target language texts are not necessarily the same; 2) text comprehension and translation are provided by the interaction of modalities and the thought switching to different modalities; 3) the images and ideas in the source text are not mainly translated into target language in a translator’s preferred modality; 4) modality transformations used by translators reflect the peculiar nature of individual sense perception system organization. The role of modality interaction in literary text comprehension and translation is undoubtful.