In Other Words: What's Happened to Metaphors in the Translation of Political Texts

Introduction

In Translation Studies, metaphors are often treated as a translatability issue (e.g., Schäffner, 2004). From a cognitive point of view, metaphors reflect the way of thinking or conceptualising of an author (speaker or writer) representing a culture (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). It follows that the translatability issue of metaphors has to do with whether or not the concepts employed in them will be recognised for both their senses and effects in a target culture if translated literally. Where metaphors are not translated literally, it is worth investigating whether or not the adopted translation procedures have a bearing on the differences in conceptualising between a source and a target culture, and consequently whether or not these procedures reflect the compromise between translating the sense and appealing to the effect of metaphors.

The current study departs from Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and draws upon Newmark’s (1980) categories of translation procedure for metaphors in its attempt to examine how the metaphors in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speeches are translated into English. It seeks to answer four research questions as below:

• RQ1: What kinds of conceptual metaphor are used by President Xi in his speeches and what are their frequencies of occurrence?

• RQ2: What translation procedures are employed for the metaphors in President Xi’s speeches?

• RQ3: What cognitive domains are reflected in the translation procedures identified in RQ2?

• RQ4: Do the translation procedures identified in RQ2 associate with cultural similarities or differences in cognitive domains between English and Chinese?