When the text is comprehended as an image and images, it can not only be transformed in a holistic structure but also with its gestalt quality reproduced. In the process of formulating an image-G, the translator experiences the gestalt quality of a certain scene or picture. This quality arises from image formulation and in turn directs image formulation and further facilitates image actualization in the T-text.

Again the example from “The Water Beetle” (see 3.1). Version two is presenting an image, thus dominated by a certain mood towards the visitors, while version one seeks for linguistic transference in spite of the inherent image and produces a text without any gestalt quality to be experienced. Such text is classified by Zwaan (1993) as locally coherent: some of the sentences are connected through argument (first 他们 and then 玫瑰花 for instance), but is not globally coherent since it does not seem to have a point, or theme or topic, or as we assume a gestalt quality. Following are more examples to support this argument.

Ex. 1

Between her agitation and her natural awkwardness in getting out of the cart, Peggotty was making a most extraordinary festoon of herself, but I felt too blank and strange to tell her.

                                                              (Charles Dickens: David Copperfield)

Version one:

在她心中的激动和下车时生来的笨拙之间，辟果提把自己弄成一个最奇特的彩球，不过我觉得太扫兴太惊奇了，未告诉她这一点。

Version two:

坡勾提当时心烦意乱，再加上她本来下车就很笨手笨脚的，所以她把身子弄得歪扭曲折，成了样子顶特别的彩绸了。不过，我当时心里一片茫然，满怀诧异，不顾得跟她说这个。

Evidently, version two is much better than version one. The excellence might be due to various reasons or manipulating techniques in reproduction. Among all the reasons, however, image formulation produces effects profoundly, so that a consistent mood is actualized in version two, which is not experienced in version one. The scene in the original text strikes the reader as an image of the awkwardness of Pegotty. The translator of version two is, in his linguistic transformation, recreates this atmosphere and builds a correspondent picture. The first version actually forms a coherent and cohesive whole linguistically, yet the aesthetic experience conveyed in the original is not fully reproduced hence a destroyed image represented. The most prominent problem is that it lacks contour and the reason for it is that the vitality, the mood not rendered, for readers would find it difficult to correlate“奇特的彩球”to“笨拙”. The first version characterizes those translations where the text is viewed as a string of words and structures to be converted into a string of equivalents. We would not describe the text as a "bad translation", for it has represented the relevant meanings in the text, and its weaknesses cannot be explained in terms of lexical items or linguistic incompetence. Grounds for criticism can however be detected if the text is viewed as a macro image, that is, when tested whether its gestalt quality is consistent or not. What is conveyed in version one is syntactic transfers and semantic constructions, which are necessary yet insufficient, for image-G representation resides in the re-creative way in which the target language develops its own artistic work similar to the original in its aesthetic effect. An isolated word or individual sentence can evoke a situation that is symbolic for an emotion or a state of affairs, and the translator can render the word or the sentence and the corresponding state of affairs without much trouble. However, when it is so intricately bound up with the gestalt image, it is much harder to handle.

When the translated text is realized in an image-G, relevant gestalt qualities will be actualized in a harmonic or consistent entity. On the contrary, if the reproduced text is not realized in an image-G, two or more unities may emerge and the gestalt (the atmosphere) is split. As a result, the distortion in the translated version would destroy the aesthetic impact or completely change their identity. 

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