A Cognitive-Pragmatic Approach to Translator's Subjectivity: Evidence from Intra-lingual Re-translation Phenomena

The theoretical framework of cognitive-pragmatic integration and translator’s subjectivity is built on the interdisciplinary fusion of cognitive linguistics and pragmatics, two fields that together illuminate the dynamic, context-dependent nature of translation as a meaning-making practice rather than a static linguistic transfer. Cognitive linguistics provides the micro-level lens to unpack the translator’s internal mental processes—including conceptualization, schema activation, and metaphorical mapping—while pragmatics offers the macro-level perspective to situate these processes within the social, cultural, and communicative contexts that shape both the source text (ST) and target text (TT). This integration rejects the traditional view of translation as a passive, rule-bound task, instead framing the translator as an active cognitive agent whose subjectivity is enacted through the interplay of internal cognitive mechanisms and external pragmatic constraints.

At its core, the framework rests on three interconnected principles. First, meaning is not inherent in linguistic forms but is constructed through the translator’s cognitive processing of the ST, which is shaped by their prior knowledge, experience, and conceptual structures. For example, when translating a culturally specific metaphor (e.g., the Chinese “井底之蛙” [a frog at the bottom of a well]), the translator’s activation of the conceptual schema of “limited perspective” triggers a search for a target-language metaphor that evokes the same cognitive effect—such as “a frog in a well” (literal retention) or “a small-town mind” (conceptual adaptation)—with the choice reflecting their subjective judgment of which schema resonates more with target readers. Second, translation is a pragmatic act oriented toward achieving communicative adequacy, meaning the translator must negotiate the ST’s illocutionary force (the speaker’s intended purpose) and perlocutionary effect (the intended impact on the audience) within the target context. A political speech from a source culture emphasizing “collective harmony,” for instance, may require the translator to adjust rhetorical strategies to align with a target culture that prioritizes “individual autonomy,” as failing to do so would undermine the speech’s communicative intent—a choice driven by the translator’s pragmatic awareness of cross-cultural audience expectations. Third, translator’s subjectivity is not arbitrary but is constrained by the “cognitive-pragmatic balance”: the translator must reconcile their internal cognitive preferences (e.g., a tendency toward literalism) with external pragmatic norms (e.g., target-language readability standards), resulting in a TT that is both cognitively coherent with the ST’s conceptual content and pragmatically appropriate for the target context.

The operational pathway of this framework unfolds in three iterative stages, each enacting the translator’s subjectivity. The first stage is ST cognitive-pragmatic analysis: the translator deconstructs the ST by identifying its conceptual metaphors, frame structures, and illocutionary acts, while simultaneously analyzing the source context (e.g., the ST’s genre, authorial intent, and original audience). For a literary ST, this might involve mapping the author’s use of “journey” as a metaphor for personal growth and noting the author’s intent to evoke nostalgia in the source audience. The second stage is cognitive-pragmatic re-conceptualization: the translator activates target-language conceptual schemas and pragmatic norms to re-express the ST’s meaning. Here, subjectivity is manifest in the selection of conceptual equivalents—for example, choosing to retain the “journey” metaphor in the TT if the target culture shares the same conceptual association, or adapting it to “climbing a mountain” if the target culture frames personal growth as a struggle against obstacles. The third stage is cognitive-pragmatic evaluation: the translator assesses whether the TT achieves the intended cognitive effect (resonance with target readers’ conceptual structures) and pragmatic effect (alignment with target context norms). This evaluation may involve revising a TT phrase that feels “culturally alien” to target readers, reflecting the translator’s ongoing refinement of their subjective choices to strike the cognitive-pragmatic balance.

This framework is of pivotal importance in practical translation applications, particularly in intra-lingual re-translation—where multiple TTs of the same ST exist within the same language, differing across time or translators. By analyzing the variations between re-translations through the lens of cognitive-pragmatic integration, researchers can trace how shifts in a translator’s conceptual schemas (e.g., evolving views of gender roles) or changes in pragmatic contexts (e.g., shifting societal attitudes toward political satire) shape their subjective choices. For example, a 1950s re-translation of a feminist novel might downplay the ST’s critique of patriarchy due to the translator’s cognitive schema of “gender hierarchy as natural,” while a 2020s re-translation might amplify this critique to align with contemporary pragmatic norms of gender equality. Such analysis not only validates the existence of translator’s subjectivity but also explains its origins in the interplay of cognitive and pragmatic factors, providing translators with a structured approach to reflect on their own decision-making and improve the communicative effectiveness of their TTs.

The selection of intra-lingual re-translations of modern Chinese literary texts as empirical cases adheres to three core criteria designed to ensure the validity and interpretability of subsequent cognitive-pragmatic analysis. First, the original texts must have at least two intra-lingual re-translations completed by distinct translators; this requirement eliminates individual idiosyncrasies and allows for comparative analysis of subjective cognitive-pragmatic choices across different translators. Second, the time span between the earliest and latest re-translations must exceed 10 years, as long-term temporal intervals often correspond to shifts in cultural contexts, reader expectations, and linguistic norms—factors that directly shape translators’ subjective interpretation and expression. Third, the corpus must cover diverse modern Chinese literary genres, including novels, essays, and short stories; this ensures that the analysis accounts for genre-specific pragmatic constraints, such as the narrative complexity of novels, the lyrical subjectivity of essays, and the concise symbolism of short stories.

The corpus construction process follows a systematic, multi-step workflow to balance representativeness and feasibility. Initially, 3–5 representative original modern Chinese literary works are selected from the canon of 20th-century Chinese literature, prioritizing texts that have sparked sustained critical attention and multiple re-translation attempts. For example, Lu Xun’s short story collection Call to Arms (1923), Bing Xin’s essay collection To the Young Readers (1923), and Lao She’s novel Rickshaw Boy (1936) are typical choices, as they are widely recognized as foundational works of modern Chinese literature and have accumulated numerous intra-lingual re-translations over decades. Next, 6–10 corresponding intra-lingual re-translations of these works are collected, sourced from official publishing houses, academic databases, and digitized literary archives; priority is given to re-translations with clear publication information and identifiable translators to ensure traceability. Finally, the authenticity and accessibility of the corpus are verified: each re-translation is cross-checked against the original text to confirm its status as an intra-lingual re-translation (rather than a revision or adaptation), and digital versions are archived in a structured database with metadata including publication year, translator background, and publisher’s stated target audience.

The representativeness of the selected cases lies in their ability to reflect typical intra-lingual re-translation scenarios and capture the multifaceted nature of translator subjectivity. In terms of translators’ professional backgrounds, the corpus includes both academic translators (e.g., scholars specializing in modern Chinese literature with formal training in translation theory) and practical translators (e.g., literary editors with years of experience in popularizing classic works), whose differing cognitive frameworks—academic rigor versus reader-oriented accessibility—manifest in distinct pragmatic choices. Regarding target reader groups, some re-translations are explicitly positioned for academic audiences (e.g., annotated versions published by university presses) while others target general readers (e.g., simplified-language editions for middle school students), leading to variations in lexical complexity, explanatory notes, and narrative tone that mirror translators’ subjective alignment with reader expectations. In terms of translation purposes, certain re-translations aim to preserve the original text’s historical linguistic style (e.g., retaining early 20th-century colloquialisms), while others seek to update the text for contemporary readers (e.g., replacing archaic expressions with modern equivalents); these divergent purposes directly reflect translators’ subjective cognitive-pragmatic orientations toward either cultural heritage preservation or intergenerational communication. Collectively, these cases ensure that the cognitive-pragmatic analysis of translator subjectivity is grounded in real-world translation practices, rather than abstract theoretical speculation.

Cognitive dimensions constitute a core framework for decoding the translator’s subjectivity in intra-lingual re-translation, with schema activation and mental space construction serving as interconnected cognitive mechanisms that shape the generation of divergent re-translation texts. Schema activation refers to the process by which re-translators retrieve and activate pre-stored structured prior knowledge systems—including literary, cultural, and linguistic schemas—during the re-translation process. These schemas are accumulated through the re-translator’s academic training, professional experience, and cultural immersion, and they function as interpretive lenses that filter and prioritize information in the original text. Literary schemas encompass knowledge of narrative structures, genre conventions, and authorial stylistic features; cultural schemas involve understandings of historical contexts, social norms, and symbolic systems embedded in the text; linguistic schemas include mastery of lexical connotations, syntactic patterns, and register variations specific to the target language. Mental space construction, rooted in Fauconnier’s mental space theory, describes the dynamic cognitive mapping process where re-translators build interconnected mental spaces to mediate the relationship between the original text’s meaning space and the re-translation’s target space. The original meaning space is a cognitive representation of the original text’s explicit content, implicit intentions, and contextual associations, while the target mental space is a contextually adapted cognitive construct that integrates the re-translator’s interpretive choices, schema-based inferences, and target language communicative needs. This construction process involves cross-space mappings between elements of the original meaning space and the target mental space, as well as the projection of schema-derived inferences to fill gaps in the original text’s explicit content.

The subjectivity of re-translators is first manifested in the activation of distinct schemas when engaging with the same original text. For example, when re-translating a classic Chinese prose work such as The Dream of the Red Chamber, a re-translator with a background in literary history may prioritize the activation of historical context schemas. This re-translator’s pre-stored knowledge of the Qing Dynasty’s social hierarchy, ritual systems, and literary trends would lead them to focus on restoring the historical authenticity of the text: when encountering the term “jiashi” (literally “painted stone”), they might activate the historical schema of Qing Dynasty jade culture and translate it as “carved jade plaque with imperial inscriptions,” emphasizing the object’s symbolic significance in the era’s aristocratic rituals. In contrast, a re-translator with a background in language education would activate pedagogical schemas centered on readability, lexical simplicity, and grammatical clarity for secondary school students. For the same term “jiashi,” this re-translator might prioritize the linguistic schema of common vocabulary and translate it as “decorative stone tablet,” omitting the historical connotations to align with the target audience’s cognitive level. Here, the divergence in schema activation stems from the re-translators’ distinct professional goals: the literary historian aims to preserve the text’s historical cultural value, while the language educator focuses on facilitating student comprehension, leading to selective attention to different semantic layers of the original text.

Mental space construction mediates the translation of schema-based interpretations into concrete re-translation expressions, further amplifying the re-translator’s subjectivity. When the literary historian re-translator activates the historical context schema, this schema shapes the construction of the target mental space by emphasizing the projection of historical elements from the original meaning space. For instance, when translating a dialogue between aristocratic characters in The Dream of the Red Chamber that implicitly references the Qing Dynasty’s imperial examination system, the literary historian’s activated historical schema leads them to build a target mental space where the dialogue’s hidden historical allusions are explicit. They might add subtle explanatory phrases (e.g., “a system for selecting officials in the Qing Dynasty”) within the text (adhering to intra-lingual re-translation’s language consistency) to ensure the historical context is conveyed. In contrast, the language educator’s activated pedagogical schema guides the construction of a target mental space focused on lexical accessibility and syntactic simplicity. For the same dialogue, this re-translator might simplify the sentence structure and replace allusive phrases with direct statements (e.g., “the official selection exam”) to avoid confusing students. This process shows that activated schemas act as “filtering mechanisms” in mental space construction: they determine which elements of the original meaning space are retained, modified, or omitted in the target mental space, and how cross-space mappings are established between original and target elements. The result is divergent re-translation expressions that reflect the re-translators’ subjective positioning—one oriented toward historical fidelity, the other toward educational utility—demonstrating how cognitive dimensions bridge the gap between the re-translator’s internal knowledge systems and external textual outputs.

Pragmatic dimensions of translator’s subjectivity in intra-lingual re-translation are anchored in two core theoretical frameworks: Verschueren’s adaptation theory and Searle’s speech act theory, which respectively illuminate contextual adaptation and illocutionary force reconstruction as key channels for re-translators to exert subjective agency. Contextual adaptation, as conceptualized by Verschueren, refers to the dynamic process through which language users adjust their linguistic choices to align with three interdependent contextual dimensions: linguistic context (the internal coherence of the text and its relation to prior discourses), situational context (the immediate communicative setting, including participants, time, and purpose), and cultural context (the shared values, beliefs, and behavioral norms that shape meaning-making). In intra-lingual re-translation, this process manifests as re-translators’ deliberate modifications of the source text (here, the initial translation) to fit the specific requirements of a new target context, thereby reflecting their subjective judgment of what constitutes effective communication in that context. For instance, when re-translating a scholarly article originally translated for a general audience into a version for an academic journal, re-translators must adapt to the formal linguistic context of academic discourse: they may replace colloquial phrases (e.g., “a lot of evidence” in the initial translation) with precise terminological expressions (e.g., “a substantial body of empirical evidence”), restructure loose paratactic sentences into hypotactic ones to enhance logical rigor, and incorporate discipline-specific jargon that aligns with the journal’s readership expectations. Conversely, a re-translation of the same article for a popular science magazine would require adaptation to a colloquial linguistic context: re-translators might simplify complex sentences, use conversational markers (e.g., “you might wonder” or “let’s break this down”), and replace technical terms with everyday equivalents (e.g., “cognitive dissonance” with “that uncomfortable feeling when your beliefs clash with your actions”) to improve accessibility—choices that are not mere linguistic tweaks but subjective decisions rooted in the re-translator’s assessment of the target audience’s communicative needs.

Illocutionary force reconstruction, drawing on Searle’s speech act theory, centers on the re-translator’s interpretation and reconfiguration of the original text’s illocutionary force—the speaker’s intended communicative purpose (e.g., asserting, persuading, advising, or warning) behind an utterance. Searle argues that illocutionary force is determined by a combination of propositional content and force-indicating devices (e.g., lexical choices, intonation, and syntactic structure). In intra-lingual re-translation, since the source text is a prior translation (which may have already altered the original’s illocutionary force), re-translators must first discern the original author’s intended illocutionary force and then reconstruct it through linguistic choices that suit the new target context—this process is inherently subjective, as it depends on the re-translator’s interpretation of the author’s intent and their judgment of how to convey that intent effectively. A notable example is the re-translation of a narrative essay originally intended to persuade readers of the urgency of climate action. The initial translation may have prioritized factual clarity, using neutral lexical choices (e.g., “climate change is a serious problem”) that convey a assertive illocutionary force. A re-translator targeting a grassroots environmental organization’s newsletter, however, might reconstruct the illocutionary force to emphasize persuasion: they could replace neutral adjectives with emotionally charged ones (e.g., “climate change is a catastrophic crisis”), use imperative sentences (e.g., “we must act now to reverse these trends”), and incorporate rhetorical questions (e.g., “can we afford to ignore the warnings any longer?”) to amplify the persuasive impact. These lexical and syntactic choices are not dictated by the initial translation but by the re-translator’s subjective goal of aligning the text’s illocutionary force with the target audience’s motivational context.

The interplay between contextual adaptation and illocutionary force reconstruction further reveals the depth of re-translators’ subjective pragmatic choices. For example, when re-translating a traditional folk tale from a regional dialect translation into a standard Mandarin version for a national children’s magazine, re-translators must adapt to the cultural context of national readership (replacing region-specific allusions with universally understood cultural symbols) and the linguistic context of children’s literature (using simple vocabulary and repetitive structures). Simultaneously, they may reconstruct the illocutionary force of the tale’s moral lesson: if the initial dialect translation emphasized a cautionary tone (e.g., “if you are lazy, you will starve”), the re-translator might soften the illocutionary force to a more nurturing advisory tone (e.g., “working hard helps us grow happy and healthy”) to align with the magazine’s educational philosophy for young readers. Such choices demonstrate that re-translators do not passively replicate the source text but actively negotiate between the original’s communicative intent and the target context’s demands, using pragmatic strategies to shape the text’s meaning in line with their own interpretive and communicative goals. In this way, contextual adaptation and illocutionary force reconstruction serve as tangible manifestations of translator’s subjectivity, bridging theoretical frameworks with the practical choices that define intra-lingual re-translation as a dynamic, agentive practice.

Interactive analysis of cognitive-pragmatic synergy in shaping subjective choices centers on the dynamic interplay between cognitive dimensions—schema activation and mental space construction—and pragmatic dimensions—contextual adaptation and illocutionary force reconstruction—within intra-lingual re-translation. This synergy is not a unidirectional process but a reciprocal, iterative interaction where cognitive structures inform pragmatic strategies, and pragmatic outcomes in turn refine cognitive representations, collectively enabling re-translators to exercise subjectivity while engaging with the original text and its contextual layers.

Schema activation, as a core cognitive mechanism, refers to the re-translator’s retrieval of pre-existing knowledge frameworks (e.g., cultural, literary, historical schemas) triggered by elements of the source text. These activated schemas serve as interpretive lenses that guide pragmatic adaptations to contextual variables, including the original’s cultural context, the target readership’s cognitive environment, and the temporal gap between the original publication and re-translation. For instance, in the intra-lingual re-translation of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (originally written in English, with later re-translations targeting post-colonial literary audiences), the re-translator’s activated “post-colonial literary schema”—encompassing knowledge of colonial discourse critique, indigenous agency, and subversive narrative strategies—shapes their pragmatic adaptation of the original’s colonial context. The original text contains passages where colonial administrators’ remarks are framed with a degree of neutrality, reflecting the 1950s literary context’s focus on cultural representation rather than explicit post-colonial resistance. The re-translator, however, drawing on their post-colonial schema, adapts these passages by amplifying the subtext of colonial oppression: for example, revising the original’s “The district commissioner spoke with a calm voice” to “The district commissioner spoke with a calm voice that masked his disdain for the village’s traditions.” This adaptation is not arbitrary; it is guided by the cognitive schema’s emphasis on exposing colonial power dynamics, which in turn informs the pragmatic goal of aligning the text with the contemporary readership’s expectation of critical engagement with colonial history.

Parallel to schema activation, mental space construction—a cognitive process where the re-translator builds interconnected mental representations of the original text’s world, the re-translation’s target context, and the historical gap between them—supports the reconstruction of illocutionary force. Illocutionary force refers to the speaker’s intended meaning or communicative purpose (e.g., assertion, critique, subversion) embedded in the text. In the Things Fall Apart example, the re-translator’s mental space construction integrates three layers: the original’s 1950s mental space (where colonial critique was implicit), the re-translation’s 2000s post-colonial mental space (where explicit subversion is valued), and the intertextual mental space linking the two. This integrated mental space allows the re-translator to reconstruct the illocutionary force of the original’s passages: the original’s neutral description of the commissioner’s voice had an illocutionary force of “reporting an event,” but the re-translator, through their mental space integration, reconstructs it to “exposing colonial hypocrisy.” This reconstruction is synergistic with the earlier contextual adaptation: the activated post-colonial schema provides the cognitive foundation for the mental space’s focus on subversion, while the mental space’s intertextual links ensure that the reconstructed illocutionary force remains grounded in the original’s narrative intent (rather than being a wholesale invention).

This cognitive-pragmatic synergy is pivotal to the realization of translator’s subjectivity in intra-lingual re-translation, as it mediates the tension between faithful reproduction and subjective interpretation. Faithful reproduction requires the re-translator to preserve the original’s core narrative and thematic content, while subjective interpretation allows them to infuse the text with contemporary relevance. The synergy resolves this tension by ensuring that subjective choices are not idiosyncratic but are rooted in cognitive engagement with the original’s context and pragmatic alignment with the target readership’s needs. In the Things Fall Apart example, the re-translator’s schema activation and mental space construction ensure that their contextual adaptation and illocutionary force reconstruction are faithful to the original’s implicit critique of colonialism, while their pragmatic strategies make this critique explicit for a modern audience. Thus, the synergy enables the re-translator to exercise subjectivity not as a deviation from the original but as a deepened engagement with it—translating not just the text’s literal meaning, but its latent ideological and communicative potential. In this way, cognitive-pragmatic synergy transforms the re-translator from a passive reproducer to an active co-creator, whose subjectivity is realized through the harmonious integration of cognitive insight and pragmatic judgment.

This study, grounded in a cognitive-pragmatic framework, explores translator’s subjectivity through the lens of intra-lingual re-translation phenomena, aiming to address the long-standing tension between the translator’s agency and the constraints of source text (ST) fidelity. Intra-lingual re-translation, defined as the reworking of a target text (TT) within the same language system by the same or a different translator, serves as a unique empirical window into the dynamic interplay of cognitive processes (e.g., schema activation, inferential reasoning) and pragmatic contexts (e.g., temporal shifts, target audience expectations) that shape the translator’s decision-making. Unlike inter-lingual translation, which focuses on cross-linguistic transfer, intra-lingual re-translation isolates the variables of the translator’s evolving cognitive schemata and changing pragmatic norms, making it an ideal corpus for unpacking the mechanisms of subjectivity.

The core principles guiding this inquiry are rooted in two cognitive-pragmatic theories: relevance theory and schema theory. Relevance theory posits that translation is a communicative act where the translator acts as a mediator, balancing the ST’s informative intention with the target audience’s cognitive environment to achieve optimal relevance. Schema theory, by contrast, emphasizes that the translator’s pre-existing knowledge structures (e.g., cultural, textual, personal schemata) filter the ST’s meaning, with re-translation reflecting the updating of these schemata over time. Together, these theories frame translator’s subjectivity not as arbitrary self-expression, but as a constrained yet creative process: the translator’s subjectivity is enacted through the selection of linguistic forms that align their updated schemata with the pragmatic demands of the re-translation context. For example, a 2023 re-translation of a 1980s literary TT might replace archaic idioms with contemporary equivalents—not to distort the ST’s core meaning, but to activate the modern audience’s cultural schemata, thereby enhancing the text’s communicative efficacy.

The operational procedure for this study involved three key steps: corpus construction, cognitive-pragmatic analysis, and cross-case validation. First, a corpus of 12 intra-lingual re-translation pairs was compiled, spanning literary, legal, and journalistic genres (e.g., two Mandarin re-translations of Lu Xun’s Diary of a Madman by the same translator, separated by 15 years; two English re-translations of a U.S. constitutional amendment by different translators, published in 1990 and 2020). Second, each re-translation pair was subjected to micro-level analysis, identifying variant segments (e.g., lexical choices, syntactic structures, discourse markers) and mapping them to cognitive-pragmatic variables: schema activation (e.g., the translator’s updated understanding of the ST’s historical context), inferential reasoning (e.g., re-interpretation of ambiguous ST phrases), and pragmatic adaptation (e.g., shifts in register to suit a younger audience). Third, cross-case validation was conducted to identify patterns across genres: literary re-translations were found to prioritize schema updating (e.g., revising metaphorical expressions to reflect contemporary cultural values), while legal re-translations emphasized pragmatic adaptation (e.g., clarifying ambiguous clauses to align with recent judicial precedents).

The importance of this research lies in its theoretical and practical contributions. Theoretically, it challenges the traditional view of translator’s subjectivity as a marginal or disruptive force, framing it instead as a constitutive element of the translation process. By demonstrating that re-translation variants are not errors but strategic choices rooted in cognitive-pragmatic dynamics, the study expands the conceptual boundaries of subjectivity from a descriptive concept to an explanatory framework. Practically, it provides translators and educators with actionable insights: translators can leverage schema-reflection exercises (e.g., documenting their pre-translation schemata and comparing them post-re-translation) to enhance self-awareness of their subjective biases, while educators can use intra-lingual re-translation tasks to teach students how to balance ST fidelity with pragmatic relevance.

In conclusion, this study underscores that translator’s subjectivity is a dynamic, context-dependent construct, with intra-lingual re-translation serving as a tangible manifestation of its cognitive-pragmatic underpinnings. Future research could extend this framework to inter-generational re-translations by different translators, exploring how collective cultural schemata shape subjective choices across time. Additionally, quantitative corpus linguistics methods could be integrated to measure the frequency of schema-driven variants, further validating the cognitive-pragmatic mechanisms identified here. Ultimately, this inquiry advances the field by providing a systematic, evidence-based account of translator’s subjectivity—one that honors both the translator’s agency and the integrity of the communicative act.