Cognitive Thinking Differences in E-C Translation Driven by Temporal/Spatial Preferences: A Case Study of the Translation of “The Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East”

This study, grounded in the interdisciplinary integration of cognitive science and translation studies known as translation cognition, examines how differing temporal-spatial cognitive orientations in English and Chinese influence translation processes. English exhibits a temporality preference, explicitly linking semantic logic through grammatical and lexical devices, while Chinese demonstrates a spatiality preference with nonlinear, chunked, and discrete language encoding. During translation, translators must cognitively reconstruct the source language to align with the target language's cognitive and expressive conventions. Analyzing English-Chinese translation cases from "The Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal For the Far East," the research reveals cognitive strategies in semantic processing and sentence restructuring. It emphasizes the importance of understanding and applying temporal-spatial cognitive differences in cross-linguistic and cross-cultural communication.