Translational reconstruction of iconicity: a corpus-based cognitive stylistic study on the acoustic narration in the English translations of Can Xue’s fiction

Abstract As an important representative of contemporary Chinese avant-garde, Can Xue’s fiction has a unique language style. The use of onomatopoetic reduplications is one of the major linguistic means of her acoustic narration, which is often closely associated with sound-related metaphoric mappings, shifting of narrative viewpoints and so on in the fiction. By comparing various ways of construal and stylistic choices made by different English translators of Can Xue’s fiction based on the comparative and parallel corpus, it is found out that transliteration of onomatopoetic reduplications is an effective means of reconstructing iconicity in acoustic narrative, which can not only enrich foreignized sensory experiences of readers but also make them accept the language and culture of the “other” in a better way. This also reflects the translator’s creative and personalized cognitive style.